This is Your Heart
by coffee-not-decaf
Summary: For Merlin's seventh year at Hogwarts, he would like some peace, quiet, and copious amounts of butterbeer. Arthur Pendragon interferes.
1. Prologue

_Bright lights, bustling public, trains whistling in every direction, Merlin was lost, so, so lost, he couldn't even find Platform Nine let alone Platform Nine and Three Quarters, his mother had dropped him off over an hour ago and he still hadn't found the train to Hogwarts, and obviously couldn't ask one of the workers, they would just think he was crazy, and it was nearly a quarter to eleven, he was going to miss his train and never get to school, he'd never become a wizard –_

"_Do you know how to get to Platform Nine and Three Quarters?" A loud, brash, young voice asked. Merlin, relief seeping through his body, spun around to see a boy about his age, blond and a little taller than him with a lift to his head and lugging an overlarge suitcase behind him. _

"_No," Merlin told him, but a smile grew on his face nonetheless. "But – you know what it is?"_

"_Of course I do," the boy scoffed. "I got the letter. Professor Nimueh even came and visited and explained to my parents what magic was. But she never told me how to _get _on the train."_

"_No one told me either," Merlin said, a sinking feeling in his stomach when he thought of his dad. His dad would have told him if he had been here. "Do you –what do you think we should do?"_

"_Well, we can't stay here," the boy proclaimed with a scowl. "We have to make it to Hogwarts or we'll get kicked out."_

"_At least we'd be kicked out together," Merlin pointed out brightly but received only a dirty look in return._

"_How's that a good thing?"_

"_Because if I have to live on the street corners of Hogsmeade that at least I'd have a neighbor living in the gutter."_

_The boy laughed, big and loud, and Merlin couldn't help but grin because he made it happen._

"_I'm Arthur," the boy told him, and without giving Merlin time to say his own name back, he continued with "Let's go find somebody that can help us."_

_That somebody was a woman in patched robes and a crooked hat, pointing them to a brick wall to "just run through, loves, it's not as difficult as it seems."_

"_Wanna go through together?" Arthur asked Merlin with a friendly smile to which Merlin nodded vigorously in response._

_Shoving their carts out on front of them, they rushed through at the exact same time, Arthur flinching just a bit before they headed through. Merlin knew though, he knew that it would be okay._

_The other side of the wall contained a huge, shining train emblazoned with "Hogwarts Express". Merlin, gaping, turned around to see if Arthur was as awed as he was – but the terminal was so crowded, too many people, children, carts, hooting owls, and Merlin lost sight of him._

_He wouldn't gain that sight back until the Sorting Hat sitting on Arthur's head screamed "Gryffindor!" after only a few seconds of deliberation, and an older student at the Slytherin table hissed "Filthy little mudblood," in Merlin's ear._

"Snobby, elitist, good for nothing, I bet you think all Muggleborns are scum – don't you, you sick bastard?"

Merlin closed his eyes and let his head thump backward against the door the of the train compartment as Arthur Pendragon hurled insults at him one by one with a crowd congregating around his obnoxious, grating tone.

His seventh year was off to a smashing success.

"Look, Pendragon –" Merlin began, defense lacing into his otherwise calm, cool, and collected tone. Or at least he thought it was calm, cool, and collected. From the looks he received from those glad in scarlet and gold, you would guess it was bordering on insane and homicidal.

"No, you look, Emrys," Arthur said hotly, abuse spewing from his tongue. This was how all of their interactions went, for the most part, with Merlin doing absolutely nothing wrong and Arthur taking a horrific offense for no reason at all.

Well, okay maybe Merlin had called him a stuck up prat under his breath when Arthur had sneered derisively at him when he tripped over Arthur's luggage, but the point remained that Merlin was not to blame for the spectacle.

"Are we done?" Merlin cut Arthur off with a tired sigh, met with a look of surprise and slight shock, as if he couldn't comprehend Merlin's utter lack of interest. "It's the first day of school, and I'm just generally not ready to deal with you yet. Can we postpone this for next week? I promise we can scream bloody murder at each other then. Maybe even have a duel. But can I _please _just get to my compartment?"

Arthur, it seemed, was so shocked by this statement that he just said "Fine," briskly, and with that word, the crowd around them dispersed with sullen, disappointed murmurs. Merlin couldn't blame them, his and Arthur's hatred for each other – or rather, Arthur's hatred for him, Merlin was just indifferent – was quite legendary around the school.

Merlin was about to thank – well, Merlin – in relief that he was getting away scotch-free without having to curse Arthur or anything, but when Arthur hissed "Pureblood supremacist," behind his retreating back, Merlin's hackles raised.

He didn't even have to think of a jinx, his magic reacting instinctively – and he pretended not to notice when Arthur's legs started dancing the tango behind him accompanied by a loud yelp, he just hurried as fast as he could down the hallway.

Couldn't let anyone know that Merlin could pull of wandless magic even at seventeen years old – that was utterly unheard of, and he had no interest in being the Ministry of Magic's experimental specimen.

"What took you so long?" Isolde barely raised her head from Tristan's shoulder when Merlin shoved the compartment door open with unneeded violence, and throwing himself into the seat across from the pair of them dramatically.

"I'm glad you asked," Merlin replied, voice heavy with sarcasm. "Arthur bloody Pendragon, that's what."

Isolde twisted her lips derisively as Tristan let out a snort of air through his nose. "Who cares what that Mudblood thinks?"

Merlin gave him a level look. "Tris."

"Right, right, sorry, nasty, offensive word, won't use it again," Tristan lifted his hands in mock defense. "Honestly, I don't know why you defend him when you can't stand the sight of him."

"I'm not defending him," Merlin snapped, making a childish face at him as Isolde rolled her eyes. "I'm defending Muggleborns in general. Not him."

"I don't know how he can get away with calling you a blood elitist when your favorite hobby is telling off any Slytherin that uses the word 'Mudblood'," Isolde shook her head fondly at Merlin, lacing her fingers with Tristan's, who gave a contended hum. Merlin felt a stab of bitterness, but swallowed the feeling immediately. He had no right to it, not anymore.

"Because he's the Gryffindor golden boy," Merlin raised an eyebrow. "Don't you know that if you wear a red scarf you can get away with murder?"

"You'll have to remember that when you finally snap and go on a murder spree," Tristan kicked his legs up against the empty seat to Merlin's right that would most likely go unoccupied unless Leon or someone stopped by to say hello. Merlin didn't actually have very many friends. He was wildly unpopular, mainly due to Arthur's ceaseless interference and slandering of his reputation.

Sometimes Merlin wondered if Arthur even remembered their first day of school when they had run through the barrier together. He highly doubted it.

"So, do tell me about your summers," Merlin decided that a subject change was in everyone's best interest. "What have you been up to you without me? Or, rather, what sexual exploits have you been up to without me?"

With his friends' laughter ringing in his ears, Merlin let himself relax comfortably into his seat. Maybe this year, things would finally go according to plan.

Or maybe not.

It was Hogwarts, after all.


	2. Canary

Many chocolate frogs later, the train came to a stuttering stop, launching Merlin forward from his previous position of not-quite-asleep against the compartment door.

"Fuck, I don't even have my robes on yet," he muttered under his breath. A look at Isolde and Tristan told him that they had been previously prepared. His bag was right overhead, however, and it took him a record time of nine seconds to get all of his clothing in order.

All, of course, except for a green and silver tie that he left hanging haphazardly on one of his shoulders.

"I've got to go find Leon," he told his friends, backing out of the compartment ahead of them.

Isolde gave him a long-suffering look. "Really? The two of you haven't grown out of this ridiculous habit?"

"We will never," Merlin said, affronted. The halls were flooded with students in all varieties of ties, which made it harder to back through them, forcing him to spin around and call over his shoulder. "Or at least, I won't, and I refuse to let Leon succumb to this awful thing called _growing up_."

Isolde sighed and Tristan chuckled. "See you at the feast, then – we'll save you a seat!"

"Thanks," Merlin yelled, meriting him a few pointed looks from other students. He only vaguely recognized any of them, and therefore could care less.

He ended up waving to Professor Gaius, calling first years across the station to him, and was greeted with a beaming smile. Despite being Head of Hufflepuff, Gaius had always been Merlin's favorite professor.

He also ran headlong into Morgana Fay at the carriages, which was always exciting.

"Emrys," she smiled with scarlet lips. "Welcome back to school."

"Good to be back," Merlin grinned back a bit nervously. Morgana inspired a healthy and rational level of terror in everyone she came across, and in sharing a common room and a majority of classes with her, Merlin had also discovered she had all intents of starting a revolution against the Ministry of Magic as soon as she was able.

Which, you know, Merlin wasn't opposed to on general principle, but it did seem like a whole lot of pent up rage and anger was inside her rather small frame. For all he knew, she was planning on joining up with Cenred Taber the day after graduation.

"Have you seen Leon Cartwright?" He asked, not exactly feeling like either being terrified or seduced by Morgana today.

She wrinkled up her nose and narrowed her eyes. "No idea."

"Well, I have to find him – so, bye," Merlin backed away as quickly as possible, disappearing into the crowd of students eagerly trying to find a seat on the thestral- pulled carriages. It was next to one of those that, craning his neck, he spotted a mop of unruly ginger hair.

"Look at that horrible, disgusting specimen of magical creature," Merlin sidled up next to Leon with a shit-eating grin. "How is that thing going to get onto the Hogwarts grounds? Surely it's far too ugly and wretched a monster to be let anywhere near where _children _live."

"Har, har, har," Leon didn't even turn around to face Merlin; he only sighed in a long-suffering manner. "You're hilarious."

Merlin reached up to ruffle Leon's curls before launching himself on the boy's other side in order to have a conversation. Leon looked the same as he always did, with his wispy soul patch that he thought made him look cool and older, robes pristine and Ravenclaw tie done perfectly in a half-Windsor. On his other side, just about to enter the carriage was the pretty, delicate little Freya, who smiled shyly up at Merlin, a direct contrast to Leon's eye roll.

"I missed you, too," Merlin said with a shining smile. Leon only eyed the green and silver tie strewn across Merlin's shoulder with great trepidation.

"I suppose you want me to do your tie?" He asked, Merlin responding with a bouncing nod. "I was hoping you had grown out of that."

"Why is everyone making assumptions about my character?" Merlin asked, pretending to be highly annoyed. "Arthur Pendragon calls me a blood purist within the first ten minutes of the train ride; you and Isolde think I have grown out of my overenthusiastic eleven year old phase…It's like no one takes the time to get to know the real me."

"We do know the real you," Leon forcibly grabbed Merlin's tie and yanked it around his neck, somewhat strangling him in the process, and therefore he couldn't reply. "Well, Isolde and I do anyway – the real you is an asshole. Not a blood purist, mind you, but still an asshole."

"Yes, but the fun kind of asshole, right?" Merlin gave Leon his most winning smile as Leon let up on his death grip on Merlin's throat. The Slytherin tie now fell perfectly in place, nice and neat and Leon-y. It had been their ritual since they were both friendless first years, out of place in their own houses and searching desperately for a friend. Leon had told Merlin his tie wasn't on right and proceeded to fix it for him – Little did poor little eleven year old Leon know that fixing Merlin's tie would become his life's work for the next six years.

Leon rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say."

"Do you want to ride in this carriage, Merlin?" asked Freya, who had waited patiently, holding the door and the ride. "We have room."

"That would be lovely, thank you, Freya," Merlin smiled kindly over at her while Leon mumbled unkind things about annoying, intruding Slytherins. Merlin elected to ignore this, shoving Leon lightly at the carriage door. "Budge up now, make room."

Freya giggled at the pair of them as they situated themselves in the small compartment of the carriage. With all of their bags accompanying them, there was really only enough room for one other person. Merlin bent his neck around the doorframe to see if there was anyone who looked to be walking alone. There didn't seem to be, so the carriage took off without so much as a spell.

Thestrals were neat like that. Seeing as how Leon and Freya both commented lightly on how the carriage seemed to know what they needed before they did, Merlin guessed he was the only one of them who could see the creatures.

It made him feel special and horribly lonely at the same time – but oh, well, what other emotions were there?

Still, when the glimmering lights of Hogwarts castle appeared, grandiose and beautiful and _home_, Merlin couldn't help but smile just a little bit.

"Do you want to sit at our table during the feast?" Freya asked Merlin with a bitten lip as the stream of students left the quickly departing carriages to rush up the stairs of the castle and toward the Great Hall. Merlin, Freya, and Leon were somewhere in the middle of the pack, fighting to remain standing amongst the jostling students. "I'm sure no one would mind."

Merlin grinned at her worried face. She was a sweet girl, but under the impression that Merlin had absolutely no friends to speak of. Untrue, quite obviously.

He had, like, five.

"Don't encourage him," Leon groaned while Merlin laughed.

"That's a negative, ghost rider," Merlin winked at her. She smiled, a blush staining her pale cheeks. "I think I've subjected Leon to enough of my presence for one day. We have to ease him back into these things. I'll see you both in class!"

Their ways parted at the doors to the Great Hall, where Merlin slipped off to the left to join the Slytherin table while Leon and Freya, both waving (though Leon's wave was more of a grumpy hand flick), headed to right.

Merlin's eyes flickered across the long house table, amassed in green and silver, attempting to zero in on Isolde's braid or Tristan's height, but attempts were fruitless. Either they were out of sight or not yet in the hall.

Resigning himself to sitting alone, Merlin stole a seat for one at the very end of the table, farthest from the head table. Many of the teachers were seated already – Gaius was most likely still out with the first years, but Professor Nimueh and Professor Du Bois seemed to be in deep conversation at one end of the table while Morgause Gorlois – Merlin never put professor in front of her name, she had only graduated four years ago, after all – seemed to be in a heated debate with Professor Monmouth.

Professor Kilgharrah, as always, sat perfectly poised and silent in the Headmaster's seat. When he saw Merlin gazing up at him, however, he acknowledged him with a single nod of his head. Merlin shuddered inwardly. For some reason, he seemed to be Kilgharrah's favorite student, and while it sounded great in theory, it was actually quite terrifying. Kilgharrah didn't like anybody.

Thankfully, Gaius and the first years entered a few moments later, which shushed the hall considerably.

As Merlin watched the children head off to their houses, he recalled his own sorting. It was his last year – he was allowed a bit of bittersweet nostalgia.

"_Oh, my – This is the most interesting head I've sat on in quite some time, Merlin Emrys."_

"_Is – is that bad?" Merlin panicked, half at the words, half at the talking hat._

"_Not at all. Let's see here…Hmm. I see potential for any house. You would excel no matter which way you go. Bravery, loyalty, intelligence, cunning – you could achieve your destiny anywhere."_

"_Thank you, I think," Merlin thought, feeling large and small at the same time._

"_But your own wishes – your ambition – it's overshadowing. You have so much inside of you that you need to get into the world, and you won't rest until you do. You are older than you seem, Merlin. So I must put you in the same house as your namesake –_

"_Slytherin!"_

It wasn't like the rest of the seventh years weren't doing the same, Merlin thought as he thrummed his fingers across the table. Lost in the memory, it wasn't long before the rest of the first years had joined their respective tables. As the final student was declared a Hufflepuff, to a smattering of polite clapping, Kilgharrah rose to his feet.

"Welcome back to another year at Hogwarts," his low, gravelly voice rang out among the dead silence of the hall. There was a reason the Headmaster's nickname was the Dragon – he was not a man to be trifled with, nor interrupted. "First years, please take note that the Forbidden Forest is off-limits to all students. Tryouts for the Quidditch teams shall be announced by your heads of house."

While his first statement garnered little more than a blink, there were a few cheers at the mention of Quidditch, mainly from the Gryffindor table. Arthur Pendragon and nearly as annoying friends were the cause, of course; Merlin didn't even have to look to recognize the whoop of delight.

"An extra security detail of Aurors will also be added to Hogsmeade this year due to the impending threat of Cenred Taber and his followers. Please be wary of this wizard and report any suspicious behavior of students or teachers."

This set off many hushed whispers across the hall, especially at Merlin's table. He tried very hard not to overhear any conversation he shouldn't, instead choosing to scowl at the oak of the table.

Cenred Taber had been considered a threat to the Ministry for a little over two years now, and he still hadn't actually started up his supposed "revolution", only riled up blood purists in his hate vendetta against Muggleborns and supposed blood traitors, but it was said he wanted to focus on young, impressionable wizards – otherwise known as Hogwarts students.

The security detail didn't surprise Merlin in the slightest.

"That being said, I invite you to partake in this evening's feast," Kilgharrah rumbled, but his last word was drowned out by the appearance of all the food the Hogwarts kitchens could supply. Merlin's stomach rumbled pleasantly as he heaped turkey and potatoes onto his plate, momentarily distracted from his being completely alone and instead reveling in the wonder of having a delicious, warm meal in front of him.

He didn't have long to ponder this, however, for before he could go back to his brooding and stewing over nothing, a figure dropped into the seat across from him.

"Mordred," Merlin acknowledged the small, dark-haired boy with a half-smile through his mouthful of candied yams. The boy was only in his fourth year, but had taken an inexplicable liking to Merlin a couple of years back. Not that Merlin was complaining or anything, the kid was nice enough, on the quiet side and more prone to the word Mudblood than Merlin would have preferred, but still decent enough company.

"Hello, Merlin," the boy said quietly, not even touching the spread of delights that lay between them. Merlin immediately felt suspicious. It was a Hogwarts feast, for crying out loud. "Good summer?"

"Good enough," Merlin shrugged his shoulders and forked another slice of turkey onto his plate. "Yours?"

"Alright," Mordred furtively snapped his eyes down the table to the far and away members of the rest of their house. Merlin's senses went on alarm and his fingers closed lightly on his wand. Not that he was expecting a curse or a hex, but just a force of habit. "Learned a few interesting things."

"Such as?" Merlin asked mildly, mentally streaming through the list of possibilities of how the situation could come out. Not many of them were overly pleasant.

A glance at the head table now. Merlin's concern upped considerably.

Mordred's voice dropped to a whisper and Merlin leaned his head forward, letting his fork clatter against his plate. "Cenred Taber – there's rumors of a meeting he's running for Hogwarts students. It's on the –"

Mordred didn't have time to finish his sentence before Merlin instinctively reached across the table and flicked him on the head.

"Ouch," Mordred lifted a hand up to rub the offending area while he glared at Merlin fiercely. "What the hell was that for?"

"Stop being stupid," Merlin told him seriously, voice low so that they wouldn't be overheard. "That's not a path you want to head down, kid. You're only fourteen; don't tie yourself to that creep."

Mordred's only response was an affronted and scandalized glare. "You can't talk about him like that!"

"I'll talk about him however I damn well please," Merlin hissed. "All he wants is a supremacist society where Muggleborns are treated like the scum of the earth."

"Yes, but he wants to take down the Ministry and start up a better, more efficient, fair version," Mordred argued and Merlin wished he was at home where there was aspirin. Hogwarts still hadn't caught on to that brilliant invention, much to Merlin's chagrin. "You hate the Ministry, I know you do."

"That doesn't change the fact that Cenred is a horrible blood purist who cares about nothing other than the rich upper class," Merlin pointed out, and Mordred seemed to hear him, for his sea blue eyes hit the table and refused to meet Merlin's.

Merlin sighed and decided to speak more gently. "Look, Mordred, I won't tell anyone about this because you're just a kid who fucked up a bit – just don't tell me anything else about it. I don't want to be responsible for whatever shit you do. And I swear to myself that if you go to that meeting, I will hex you to oblivion."

Mordred was quiet for a moment, but then cracked a smile. "You swear to yourself?"

Merlin snorted, glad they were returning to familiar ground. "Everyone else swears by my name, but when I do it I'm an arrogant piece of shit. _What _was my father thinking when I was born?"

They shared a laugh before Mordred left Merlin to finish his meal in peace.

However, sinking into his green-curtained four-poster that night, Merlin felt anything but peace.

Whereas the first night at Hogwarts had always felt like an adrenaline rush and a comfortable home, tonight there was only pool of dread filling his stomach.


	3. Coal Mine

Merlin was smart.

Merlin was very, very smart. Near genius level, in fact. From the time of his first year at Hogwarts, teachers constantly praised him for being the most creative, innovative thinker they had come across. Every single one of them, even the ones that didn't like him, expected him to do something great and successful with his life.

Like that was going to happen – but he appreciated the sentiment nonetheless. All of them but Gaius thought he was going to become an Auror, what with all the classes necessary in his NEWT schedule. Professor Agravaine never seemed to stop talking about all his contacts in the Ministry when Merlin was around.

(Merlin tried not to be around Agravaine if he could help it. The man might be Head of Slytherin, but he rubbed Merlin the wrong way, always had.)

It wasn't so bad, though – Except when he was handed his schedule on the first day of classes each year.

_That _gave him heart palpitations.

"Oh, God," Merlin groaned the second his eyes landed on the schedule Agravaine handed to him with a smarmy comment that he hadn't actually caught. He knew it was smarmy just because it was Agravaine. "I'm going to die in agony."

Tristan peered over his shoulder in order to forego grabbing his own schedule and made a disgusted face to accompany Merlin's moan of despair. "Do you – do you want to have _any _free time this year?"

"Apparently not," Merlin looked mournfully down it the piece of parchment that announced that not only was he taking Transfiguration, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, and Herbology, but also Advanced Ancient Runes and Alchemy. He was booked solid every day of the week except for a single, lonely free period every other Friday morning.

"Why the hell are you taking Alchemy?" Isolde wrinkled her nose as she joined the two of them at the end of the Slytherin table, a few yards away from Agravaine and the flock of Slytherin NEWT students. "Isn't that a specialty class?"

Merlin cursed internally he thought back to the day at the end of his sixth year when Professor Nimueh stopped him before leaving class with a saccharinely sweet smile and an offer of a specialty elective in seventh year because "there's only one other student interested and it's beyond us to offer a class for a solitary student, but he's quite insistent, so if you wouldn't mind…?"

Past Merlin had agreed to take the class.

Past Merlin was a fucking idiot.

"I should have known Nimueh was just out to destroy me in the end," Merlin bemoaned his entire existence, letting his head hit the wooden table with a resounding thump. Tristan's hand was light on the back of his neck. He probably thought he was being comforting. He was not.

Isolde snorted as she threw a leg over the opposite side of the table, electing not to head out with the stream of students making their way toward the exit. "What else would you expect from a Gryffindor?"

Merlin eyed her without answering the question, lifting his head up slightly and working out a kink in his neck. He messed with his tie a bit, which Leon would sigh at him for if he was here, but the Ravenclaws were far more efficient about these things, and the hall was currently littered with a majority of Hufflepuffs and Slytherins. Merlin would have sought out some of his acquaintances from other houses, but the schedule was too pertinent a matter.

He had Charms in ten minutes.

Isolde and Tristan, however, with their sympathetic yet slightly uninterested looks, seemed to be in no rush. Merlin was suspicious. "What class do you two have right now?"

"Free period," was their in-sync response. Merlin considered vaulting himself off the Astronomy Tower.

"No. No way. No _fucking _way."

Merlin's impending fate of being a splotch of blood and innards on the ground had just been vamped up from a consideration to a certainty when he walked into the usually unused classroom on the fourth floor where his schedule said Alchemy would be taught.

His fellow student could have been anyone, anyone else in the entire year, but here was Arthur Pendragon, crystal eyes vehement and Gryffindor tie askew.

_Fuuuuuck_.

"Hello to you, too, Pendragon," Merlin put on his best fake smile as he threw himself down in the seat next to Arthur, letting his overly heavy book bag hit the floor with a thud. Arthur gave him the stink eye as if he expected Merlin to move across the classroom so that he couldn't be contaminated by the Slytherin-ness. Merlin just made a rude face at him.

Arthur scowled in return. "Emrys – I should have known it would have been you."

"I should have known it would have been _you_," Merlin repeated with an uncharacteristic sneer. What could he say? Arthur Pendragon brought out the worst in him. "Who else would requisition an entire class just for them?"

"For your information," Arthur's voice dripped with disdain. "Alchemy is a necessity for any post-graduate Auror program, and they're twice as likely to look at your application if you've already finished the class."

Christ, Arthur was going to be an Auror. As if Merlin needed another reason to loathe him. Other than the five year running merciless bullying, obviously. Arthur could never top that.

Merlin didn't say anything other than a biting "I know."

They sat in palpable silence until the clattering of footsteps in the hall caused Merlin to sit up straighter and Arthur's eyes to flicker to attention instead of glaring daggers in Merlin's direction. A kindly looking older lady with grey white hair and a beaming smile appeared; she was recognized immediately.

"Alice," Merlin greeted the school's matron warmly. "What –"

"–Are you doing here?" Arthur smoothly inserted himself into the sentence with a grin he probably thought was charming and roguish but was actually…well, charming and roguish, but Merlin knew better than to admit that to himself.

"Haven't they told you boys? I'm to be your teacher." If Alice would have been younger, she would be bouncing on her toes.

"But you're just the school matron," Arthur laughed, but it was without any heat or accusation, only gentle teasing. That earned him a strange look from Merlin. He had never heard Arthur Pendragon address anyone with an emotion other than scathingly rude – but maybe that was just to Slytherins who he deemed unworthy elitists.

"I have interests and hobbies as well as you students, you know," Alice sniffed at Arthur but her face quickly transformed back into its jovial expression.

"Do we have to call you professor now, then?" Arthur asked with just as much enthusiasm. She had always insisted that the students call her Alice when they visited the hospital wing, said that calling her Madam sounded far too professional for her tastes. Merlin had always liked her, and as a frequenter of the hospital wing, had gone into her office for tea on more than one occasion. It seemed, however, that Arthur knew her even better.

"Absolutely not," Alice proclaimed with a flourish. "I won't stand for it."

Both Arthur and Merlin laughed, but cut themselves short at the sound of the other.

"Oh, now, you boys don't have a petty House rivalry, do you?" Alice noticed their behaviors with a click of her tongue. "You're the only two students I have, I don't want any arguments."

"We'll be angels," Merlin promised as he side-eyed Arthur. "Right?"

Arthur, with a tight smile that was not fixed on Merlin, nodded. He looked very pained to do so, which gave Merlin a thrill of vindictive pleasure.

"Good," Alice said affirmatively. "Do you boys have your textbooks?"

Merlin dug inside his bag for a moment before pulling out _The Process of Alchemy for Beginners._ Arthur's was already out on his desk in front of him.

"Good, good," Alice said. "Now, it's not much use me being down here until you understand the basic principles, so let's say that by next week's class you'll have read the first four chapters – come prepared with any questions you may have. I must get back up to the hospital wing – Elena Gawant has broken her wrist again, silly girl, and on the first day of school, too. I promise that it won't always be like this, but as it's the first day of class, chances for student accidents are doubled – I'll see you boys next week! Do your readings!"

Merlin said goodbye with a half-hearted wave in her flurry to get out the door. Alice was a lovely woman, if a little scatterbrained. But she had just left Merlin alone with Arthur Pendragon for the next two hours, which, while forgivable, wasn't something he would be forgetting soon.

Arthur's mouth twisted into something red and angry as he propped his book open to the first chapter. Merlin let out a puff of breath and thought about all of his Charms and Herbology homework due far before the readings – and after rummaging for a moment, grabbed his half-started Charms essay and his quill and ink.

"What the hell are you doing?" Arthur hissed after a few minutes of Merlin attempting to write. Magic he was excellent at, but essays took effort, so he contemplated not answering. He did a moment later, however, unable to resist the bait.

"Writing my Charms essay," Merlin said. "You were in that class, you should know – it's the one on the basics of a Patronus. Did you fall asleep?"

Merlin thought he was being very nice; his tone wasn't even its typical sarcastic bite. Arthur seemed not to appreciate it, though.

"We're supposed to be doing the readings," he snarled under his breath, which Merlin didn't understand, as they were alone in the room, and probably the hallway, too. Possibly even the wing.

"Yeah, but Charms is due first," Merlin explained logically. "We only have Alchemy once a week."

"You're being disrespectful," Arthur said. "This is Alchemy class. Do your Alchemy work."

Merlin finally just spun around in his seat meet Arthur's eyes, cold and accusatory. "You're just trying to pick a fight now. What's your problem?"

"You're my problem," Arthur muttered but there was hardly a drop of heat to it, only exasperation, as if he didn't want to do this but some inner, primal force was making him be rude and uncouth. Merlin rolled his eyes long-sufferingly.

He then proceeded to stick out his tongue in a great show of maturity before staring back down at his essay. Unfortunately, it still had not been finished throughout his brief conversation. Merlin would have enchanted the quill to write for him but Arthur was sitting right there and would jump at the chance to turn Merlin in for performing wandless, spell-less magic.

"So you're _not _going to do the Alchemy reading?" Arthur could not let things go, apparently, for his voice took on a dangerous tone as if he was daring Merlin to defy him once more. It was bloody tiring, dealing with him.

"That's a negative, Ghost Rider."

Blessed silence filled the next moment, and Merlin thought Arthur was finished with him.

It was not to be so, for after a few beats of quiet, an incredulous voice filled the air. "Top Gun? _You_? A Top Gun reference?"

Merlin let out a huff of a laugh as he jerked his head back to meet Arthur's gaping expression. "I make that reference like six times a day."

"But – but you're _pureblood_!" Arthur could not seem to comprehend this twist of events in his version of reality, for his mouth kept making movements that resembled a fish. Merlin refrained from laughing.

Well, that was a lie, he was laughing quite a bit. Just on the inside.

"What gave you that impression?" Merlin snorted, feigning nonchalance when he was feeling anything but. Arthur had been his bully for years due to Merlin's blood type, he couldn't wait to see the Gryffindor's expression when he learned of the truth.

Arthur's look clearly said _duh. _"You're in Slytherin."

Merlin blinked. "Uh-huh. And?"

"Slytherins are nothing but a bunch of pureblood elitists who treat Muggleborns like second-rate citizens in the magical community; almost all of you end up to be dark wizards…"

"I'm a half-blood," Merlin interrupted him, only to be greeted with more fish faces.

"Why didn't you _say _anything?" Arthur's Alchemy book thudded against the table, all but forgotten. "I…I've…"

"Hurled abuse at me for years?" Merlin suggested brightly. "Made assumptions about things you knew nothing about?"

"It was a logical assumption!" Arthur protested, but his incredulity soon turned to his usual biting anger. "Your father –"

Merlin sucked in a breath as blood pounded to his head. Arthur glared and he tried to breathe normally. "Stop talking," he managed to get out in as amicable a tone as he could muster. "Just stop right now. Don't say a word about my father."

"But he –" Arthur's face grew closer to his, red and seething, as if he was going to bite Merlin's head off.

Merlin would beat him to that punch any day, though, for the magic in his veins thrummed tight against his skin, itching to be let out in a furious rage. His fingernails gripped the desk in front of him and he held his feelings in the bottle in his stomach.

"Stop," he choked out. "We're done. Just – Not any more today, Pendragon. You can return to your regularly scheduled torment tomorrow."

Dead silence reigned until the bell.


	4. All The Rage

Merlin remained in a fuming rage just barely held in by his own sheer will until just before supper time, when, across the courtyard, he caught a glimpse of an extremely familiar face. Even seeing the back of her head made Merlin's state of anger and stewing in things he should have said disintegrate.

"Guinevere," he cajoled over the crowd and, diving around a couple of younger Ravenclaws that scattered at the sight of him, grabbed her around the waist from behind. He felt her choke in surprise before bursting into half-giggling snorts.

Swatting his hands away as he attempted to lift her feet up off the ground, she cried "Let go of me, you imbecile!"

Setting her down with a grand flourish, he said "Missed you, too."

Gwen Grace spun around to shove lightly at his shoulder with her own gloved one, a bright and beaming smile on her pleasant and dimpled features. Dressed pristinely in black and yellow with a book bag slung over one arm, she looked like the model student. Which, of course, she was – Nothing Gwen did was ever wrong. Gwen was perfect. Merlin would destroy anyone who ever thought otherwise.

She was also one the only people that actually liked him. It was nice, being liked. Not a thing often experienced in Merlin-land. Highly appreciated.

"How was your summer?" Gwen grinned, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Elyan and I went on holiday to France, it was lovely."

Her brother, Elyan, on the other hand, did not like Merlin. But he was a Gryffindor lackey of Arthur Pendragon, so such things were only to be expected. But Merlin wasn't thinking about Arthur Pendragon right now, because only pain abounded in that particular recess of his brain.

"Nothing much – watched a lot of television, visited my aunt in London one weekend," Merlin shrugged noncommittally. Gwen was Muggle-born and was the only one of Merlin's peers who wasn't under the assumption that his blood was as pure as the driven snow. Or whatever the expression was. "How was your History of Magic seminar?"

Gwen glowed. She was looking to be a wizarding historian after she finished Hogwarts, keeping track of records and dates and the like. It sounded dead boring to Merlin, but Gwen had a real passion for it. She and Professor Monmouth never stopped talking about Goblin Wars. "It was fantastic, I learned loads. In fact, Monmouth thinks…"

Merlin never learned exactly what Monmouth thought, for a new voice entered the conversation; a body had sidled up between them throughout the conversation.

"Hello, Gwen."

"Hi, Leon!" Gwen beamed sunnily up at the tall, overcast shadow that Leon cast over the courtyard's dying sunlight. Leon's smile down at her was quiet and reserved, but Merlin could feel the underlying affection in it. "I tried to find you to see if you wanted to come and eat lunch at the Hufflepuff table, but I couldn't find you."

Leon and Gwen had been best friends since birth, practically, Muggle-born neighbors who had bonded over their Hogwarts letters arriving on the same day. Merlin, feeling pinpricks of exclusion, inserted himself into the fray.

"What, no hello for me?" Merlin complained loudly as Leon gave him a horribly pained look. Gwen giggled at the pair of them as Merlin continued bemoaning his friend's betrayal. "Is this how it's going to be this year? Our final year, Leon? You're going to ignore me in favor of pretty girls?"

"I've always ignored you in favor of pretty girls," Leon rolled his eyes. Gwen widened hers.

"You think I'm pretty?"

Merlin snorted as Leon stammered out something borderline romantic that made Gwen's cheeks darken. The two of them had been dancing around each other like this for years now.

Luckily, their awkward mutual blushing was interrupted by a tiny blonde girl nearly plowing Merlin over. He let out a surprised choke as a hand grabbed out for his falling book bag. It didn't reach it in time, however, and the bag thudded to the floor. Merlin would have been worried about the state of his inkwells if he wasn't too busy trying to regain his breath.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," a fretful Elena reached for Merlin's shoulders without touching him, which was probably a good move. Merlin stood up straight and took in a deep, glorious breath of fresh air.

"Its fine," he assured her and he bent over to pick up his books. "Nice to see you again, Ellie. I thought you broke your wrist?"

"I did," Elena winced.

"I saw it," Gwen chimed in. Leon reached around Merlin to pull Elena into a hug on his side. She barely reached his elbows – Elena was the shortest person Merlin knew. "Double Transfiguration with Gryffindor, she tried to change her eye color and…I don't know exactly what happened after that?"

"A long and dreadfully boring story," Elena shook her head in mock defeat. She brightened up immensely in the next moment. "Percival carried me to the hospital wing, though!"

As Elena rambled on for a few minutes about how swoon-worthy the tall, handsome, freakishly muscled Hufflepuff Quidditch player was, an idea occurred to Merlin that blew away all lingering feelings of resentment and frustration that Arthur had left in his wake.

"Hey," Merlin spoke up when Elena took a breath. Three pairs of eyes flickered to meet his. "We should do something special tonight, to commemorate our last first day of school. I know Isolde has some firewhiskey – we could make an evening out of it!"

"Breaking the law on the first day of school? Sounds like a hell of a lot of fun."

Merlin took back anything he thought about the disappearance of his unhappiness. It was very present, threatening to bubble over.

"Fuck _off_, Pendragon," Merlin couldn't see the Gryffindor's face, but the looks of his friends ranged from concerned (Gwen), confused (Elena), and slightly terrified (Leon). Merlin guessed Arthur was standing directly behind him with all the fire and passion of his forbearers.

Merlin turned to face him. Ding. Got it in one. He should be on a Muggle game show.

"I just wanted to inform you that you being half-blood will not excuse you from your bigotry," Arthur said hotly, and Merlin's mouth fell open. This wasn't happening. "Plenty of dark wizards have been half-bloods."

_What the hell is your problem? _Merlin felt like screaming. His friends were behind him, for Christ's sake. At least they weren't Slytherin peers who had heard exactly what his heritage was, but they could easily get the wrong impression from Arthur's words.

"I – I can't – Come with me," Merlin reached out and yanked Arthur away from the courtyard by the tie. He felt the other boy choke in surprise as he was frog-marched far, far away from anyone whose opinions mattered to Merlin. He made a point not to look back.

"What's_ wrong_ with you?" Arthur yelped, shoving Merlin away from him almost the second they had reached the interior of the castle. The halls were hardly busy, what with the remnants of summer still in the air. Only a few first years littered the walkways, so Merlin made a mental note not to swear too loudly.

"You!" Merlin made clutching motions toward Arthur's perturbed and annoyed face. He groaned at the lack of response it merited. "I don't know if you realize this, Pendragon, but I'm an actual, real person, not a punching bag. And those were my friends you just humiliated me in front of back there!"

"You have _friends_?" Arthur sounded disturbed.

Merlin wanted to die.

"Yes, I have friends, you arrogant – clotpole!" Merlin bit his tongue.

Arthur snorted. It almost sounded like actual, genuine laughter, which obviously couldn't be the case, as Arthur was the incarnation of the devil himself. "What's a clotpole?"

"You, you are a clotpole," Merlin muttered darkly but he had lost his heat. He sighed as Arthur did something that could only be described as giggling. "You're just looking for any excuse to hate me, aren't you?"

Arthur's laughter switched off as his face turned to one of neutral defense. "I don't need any excuse."

"Look," Merlin said, enunciating his words for proper understanding. "You call be a bigot and an elitist, but I have never done_ anything_ to suggest that I am one. There is nothing wrong with the way anyone is born, be it pure-blood, half-blood, or Muggle-born. I may be a Slytherin, but I am not a bad person. Now will you _please _leave me alone?"

"But – you can't just – it's not that simple!" Arthur flapped his arms in a way that was more comical than actually threatening. "That's not all there is!"

"What are you talking about –?" Merlin began, but was cut off by a raucous shout from just outside the double doors leading back out to the grounds.

"Arthur, mate, Elyan heard from his sister that we're sneaking up to the Astronomy Tower tonight to get smashed," A boy with long, thick hair and the beginnings of a beard and moustache duo flung himself through the doorway like a model on the runway. Of average height and relatively stocky, his Gryffindor uniform was nowhere near standard, with an untucked shirt and his tie around his head.

When the boy saw Merlin, he nodded with something akin to respect. "Emrys."

"Green," Merlin responded automatically. Gwaine Green was an annoying Gryffindor tosser, but he was always respectful to him. He'd seen Merlin do something scary once.

"Cool," Arthur said, argument apparently forgotten as he thumped Gwaine on the back in one of those heterosexual male forms of affection that Merlin had never fully understood. He gave Merlin a cursory glance, recognizing that this _was _Merlin's party. Technically. His idea to have a party, at the very least. "Heading to dinner, then?"

When the two Gryffindors disappeared around the hall's bend, Merlin let his head fall backwards to hit the stone wall.

"Fuck my _life_," he groaned, earning him more than one revolted glare from a group of second years.

* * *

It was a good thing Isolde had brought the firewhiskey.

It wasn't a good thing when Merlin arrived too late to actually drink any of it.

"You couldn't save any of it for me?" Merlin complained loudly in Isolde's ear. He had to be loud to be heard over the yells and shouts of seventh years and some sixth years from what looked like every house. The Astronomy Tower was more crowded than Merlin had ever seen it, including actual classes. A radio was crooning out an old Celestina Warbeck hit from back in the '70s, students drinking and partying like they wouldn't have to head to class in the morning with a raging hangover.

Luckily, Alice was up to speed on all the parties and knew exactly what mornings she needed to brew extra draughts of hangover remedies.

"You snooze, you lose," Isolde flashed him a smile, using his own coined expression, from where they were sitting, leaning against one of the pillars as the excitement raged around them. Merlin even saw Leon getting his crazy on, chugging butterbeers with Gwen and Mithian.

"I would like to take the credit for plotting this entire escapade," Merlin announced, despite Isolde being the only one in earshot. "Although in my original plan,_ I_ was the one getting drunk. And there were far fewer _people_."

"I know," Isolde sighed dramatically. "The Gryffindors far outnumber us."

Merlin hummed noncommittally, taking note of a few Gryffindor girls hanging all over Percival while he was trying to converse with Elena. And of course, one could not forget Arthur Pendragon and his friends. If Merlin craned his neck, he could see Lancelot, the quieter one of the pack, and Gwaine having a contest as to who could drink the most in a five minute time span. Even Merlin knew Gwaine would be winning that one.

Tristan appeared a moment later to sweep Isolde off her feet, and Merlin reminded himself that the bubble of jealousy in his chest was most definitely not allowed to be there.

"Emrys."

"Fuck!" Merlin nearly jumped a foot in the air as a lean, dark-haired girl lowered herself to his level, Slytherin tie immaculate as her black manicured nails. "Morgana, you scared the shit out of me."

"Easily startled," Morgana let out a chuckle as she leaned against the pillar. "You look lonely."

"I'm not," Merlin said. "Lonely, that is. I am enjoying my alone-ness immensely."

Morgana laughed. The sound rumbled deep in her throat. It was an attractive sound, but not one Merlin could hear without getting shivers down his spine. "Will you be going to the first Hogsmeade weekend?"

"Probably," Merlin answered after a second's hesitation. Was Morgana asking him on a date? She was gorgeous, but he was relatively certain that a date between the two of them could only end in fire and brimstone. Also, he would most likely be killed. "The date hasn't been announced yet…Why?"

"A little birdie told me something about you, and I'd like to know if it's true or not," Morgana rose elegantly to her feet, Merlin scrambling up after her.

"Erm – what?" He racked his brains, trying to think of whom the bird could be and what they told her. He came up blank.

"I'll see you later," Morgana said as she melted into the crowd. A blink and you would have missed her.

Merlin was starting to think that this year could only get worse from here.

He was right.

Just after two, the party breaking up, Merlin, slightly tipsier than he had been before, figured it was about time he headed back to his dormitory with the fervent hope that Alice would have something special prepared for him in the morning. Stumbling down the staircase to the entrance hall, he was relatively certain he was alone.

This was most assuredly not the case.

"_Mer_lin," a pompous call echoed in the darkness of the castle and Merlin felt a heavy weight against his back.

"Pendragon?" Merlin groaned, not nearly sober enough to recognize the voice. Keeping himself upright, he hauled the figure behind him to his feet. It was indeed Arthur Pendragon, entirely unkempt in every way and far too drunk for him to register this as a real conversation.

"Hi," Arthur draped himself over Merlin's shoulder. He buckled under the extra weight.

"Okay, get up," Merlin pushed Arthur upright again. The boy swayed a few times before falling back against him. This battle was one Merlin would lose. He threw in the towel early, letting Arthur settle comfortably onto him.

"I got lost," Arthur mumbled into the crook of Merlin's neck. "Gwaine's a dick."

"I'm sure," Merlin said. "And I suppose you want me to help you out of – what? The goodness of my heart?"

"No, you're evil," Arthur said, because of course Arthur said that. "Redeem yourself."

"I could leave you here," Merlin informed him tartly. "Sprawled out on the floor for the professors to find you in the morning. Then we'll see what they really think of the Gryffindor golden boy."

Arthur didn't respond, other than making unintelligible sounds into Merlin's sleeve.

Merlin took a moment to consider just how good a person he really was.

Goddamn, he was a pushover.

"You're not even going to remember this in the morning," Merlin said, cursing all the deities he knew as he put an arm around Arthur's waist, keeping him standing. "I hate you."

"Hate you more," Arthur said, but there was a smile to his words that Merlin had never heard when the boy wasn't overly intoxicated and in his right mind.

Luckily, Merlin did not have to depend on Arthur's shaky mental state for directions. He knew exactly where Gryffindor Tower was – well, really, he knew where all the House common rooms were. He had far too many friends in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, and they had friends in Gryffindor. There had been quite a few major blowout parties there in sixth year that Merlin had stolen Leon's Ravenclaw tie to get into.

After half-carrying Arthur up more staircases than he was worth, Merlin deposited his barely conscious body in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"You're not supposed to be here," she gazed down at him reproachfully.

Merlin refrained from sighing. "I'm aware. Look, he's really drunk and probably needs a bed. Can you please just let me in so I can go and get Gwaine Green? Or Lancelot Du Lac?"

She sniffed. "Of course not. You need a password."

"I don't have a password!" Merlin said. "This isn't my house. I just want to make sure that he doesn't, you know, die from alcohol poisoning." He gestured over at Arthur with the hand that wasn't supporting him.

"Password."

"I can't just take him back to my house!" Merlin said, getting desperate. Dragging Arthur's sorry arse up here was one thing, but subjecting the Arthur to the Slytherins – or, rather, the Slytherins to Arthur – would lead to nothing short of a bloodbath.

Arthur, in a showing of alertness, stood up a little straighter, though still very much supported by Merlin, to whisper "Scamander."

"What?"

"S'the password, _Mer_lin."

"Scamander!" Merlin repeated loudly. The Fat Lady, curse her overlarge bosom, nodded curtly before swinging open. He shoved Arthur through the portrait hole less than lightly.

The Gryffindor common room was more welcome than the Slytherin one, what with the roaring fire and plush chairs, all bathed in a golden kind of glow that Merlin associated with warmth and coming home. Not that he didn't love Slytherin, but there were advantages to other ways of life.

He deposited Arthur one of the couches. He would already be getting enough shit for this, and he didn't feel like getting caught taking Arthur up to his dorm. Knowing the Gryffindor mentality, he would probably be accused of drugging Arthur, or raping him, torturing him, having intentions to kill him…Merlin would just rather avoid that.

"You could say thank you," Merlin grimaced down at Arthur as he began to walk away, thoughts of his own bed in mind.

"I can't, I have to hate you," was Arthur's barely intelligible mumble.

Merlin paused. Arthur might be drunk enough to be honest with him. He might not have the opportunity to ask again. He had to take advantage of situations like this.

"…Why?" He asked cautiously.

"Cause of what you did," Arthur blinked blearily over at him. "What he did. You…You…You didn't do anything, did you?"

Arthur's eyes widened in supposed realization before drooping shut. "Arthur?" Merlin said, tentative. "Arthur?"

He had passed out.

Merlin went to sleep even more confused than ever.


	5. For The Team

A sharp and heated look from the Gryffindor table was all the thanks Merlin received from Arthur at breakfast the next morning.

Great. Just freaking fantastic. His day was off to a brilliant start.

And the hangover didn't help in the slightest.

After harassing an equally headache-laden Leon into doing his tie, Merlin helped himself to the Ravenclaws' eggs and toast. The Slytherin table was much too far away for him to consider going back. That would require more walking and other things that meant exerting effort, and Merlin was just really not about that.

It seemed that before Merlin had shown up to harass him, Leon had been spieling at Freya about how nice and lovely Gwen was. Which, while being rather accurate, also got tiresome rather quickly.

"I just – I never really noticed before, about how sweet she is, even to plastered Gryffindors who can barely rub two brain cells together and Slytherins who would prefer Muggleborns extinct," Leon rambled. Freya nodded, smiling supportively. Like Merlin, she was hoping to be in their wedding party one day. "And when she helped Morgana Fay down the stairs –"

Merlin wanted to be supportive, he really did, but it was far too early for being a good friend.

"I'm too queer for this," He groaned, letting his fork clatter to his plate and holding his pounding head in his hands. "Can I go back to sleep now?"

"No," Leon said mildly as Freya snorted in a highly unladylike manner. Merlin granted her with a tired smile before saying "I'm off to see Alice. Good luck with your tragic love affair, Leon."

"It's not a love affair –" Leon began to protest, but Merlin would hear none of it. He left the hall before more lies and blasphemes could enter his ears.

* * *

"Good morning, my favorite person in the whole entire universe," Merlin entered the hospital wing with a beaming grin at Alice's portly frame as she leaned over to scrub vigorously on one of her empty bedpans. The wing was nearly empty except for her and a small first year Hufflepuff boy sitting curled up on one of the beds.

"Merlin!" Alice stood up straighter, smiling. "I take it you were in attendance at the party that's made six students come to me for hangover remedies so far this morning?"

"You know me so well," Merlin laughed.

Alice walked over, shoes clapping on the floor as she did. She dimpled up at him. "Have you finished your readings for Alchemy yet?"

Merlin winced and almost wished he had taken Arthur's unkind words to heart and finished the first chapters of his book so that he wouldn't have to lie or disappoint the only person who could properly stop his head from throbbing. He chose to lie, obviously. "Finished them yesterday afternoon."

He felt a twinge of guilt at Alice's clap of delight, but it disappeared in the next moment when the door to Alice's office swung open to reveal Gaius, mouth a thin line and eyebrows severe as ever.

"Good morning, Professor," Merlin said cheerfully. "Sleep well?"

Gaius gave him a Look. It was common knowledge among the students that Gaius and Alice were together, despite not being in matrimony. They still tried to keep up appearances, though, bless their valiant little souls.

"Mr. Emrys," Gaius greeted him cordially. "Will I be seeing you in my class twenty minutes from now, headache-free and fully ready to learn?"

"Most definitely," Merlin assured him. His Potions class ran on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which was rather unfortunate. It meant having homework due in two days and being subjected to Gaius's looks of disapproval more often than he'd like. And Gaius was always disapproving.

Merlin was supposed to be Gaius's favorite, but that just meant he was held to a higher standard than the rest of the students. The same held true in Nimueh and Kilgharrah's case. Everyone liked Merlin, but when he fucked up, he _fucked up._

Alice had taken the opportunity to go putter around at her desk, where in her hands appeared a beautiful little vial Merlin recognized immediately as his salvation.

"Thank you so much," Merlin said as she handed it to him. "I love you. If Gaius never marries you, I will. Beauty fades, but hangover remedies last forever."

Alice went pink and Gaius glared at him. "At least until the next time you need it, dear," she joked.

"I'll see you on Monday for Alchemy," Merlin waved, heading out the door. Once out of their eyeshot, he downed the potion in one gulp. It tasted of strawberry jam and Cheering Charms.

Merlin nodded at a few of the older students on his way down to Potions class, most likely heading up to sweet talk Alice into giving them a little bit of headache help as well.

Down at the entryway to Gaius's classroom, Merlin put up with sneers from his Gryffindor classmates.

"Emrys."

"Green."

"Fucking purebloods."

"Good to see you to, Elyan."

"Hi, Emrys. How was your summer?"

"–Hi, Du Lac…uh…okay, I guess?"

"Thank you."

"What the f–"

"Don't make such a racket," Arthur Pendragon hissed in his ear, yanking on the back of his robes to keep him in place as the rest of the class shuffled in the door after a freshly appeared Gaius. Merlin looked longingly after Tristan and the other Slytherins, the former of whom gave him a concerned look before disappearing into the classroom.

"Pendragon, class is _starting,_" Merlin protested, wildly gesticulating at the nearly closed doorway. They were alone in the dungeon hallway now, their only company the flickering torches on either side of the entryway to the classroom. At the same time he internally panicked about missing class – did he mention Gaius's _ridiculously high standards _– he had also registered what Arthur had said. There had been a distinct 'thank' and also a 'you'. This was a fucking miracle.

"Look, I just needed to say – _that_ –" Arthur gestured with a firm downward hand motion. Apparently there was not going to be a repeat performance of the greatest thing to happen to Merlin since he hooked up with Mithian Moore in fifth year. "About last night. Lancelot had come down to the common room and saw you down there with me, so – just – I'm grateful, okay?"

Merlin felt somewhat giddy, on top of the world. Invincible. Merlin could live off this high for quite a while. But there was a different, deeper part of him that desperately wanted to ask Arthur why he had found Merlin, of all people, last night, and who the he was that Arthur blamed Merlin for.

Neither emotion had the chance to win the struggle, for Arthur decided to act like an ass again and leave the available premises in Merlin's heart as plain and simple annoyance.

"There's no need to look so cheerful," he grumbled under his breath, clocking the back of Merlin's head in a way that did not mix well with the potion Merlin had taken. He swayed dangerously onto one foot, but managed to right himself.

"Well, you're welcome," Merlin said haughtily, because he deserved to, all thoughts of asking Arthur profound questions out of his mind. And then, because he never knew when to shut up, he said "Are we gonna kiss and make up now?"

He was not dignified with a response, only a disgusted look as Arthur dramatically banged into the classroom, leaving Merlin to follow in a less impressive state of affairs.

Merlin was slightly disgusted himself when he found he actually wouldn't have minded kissing Arthur.

But that was a lesser concern compared to the fact that he probably justified Arthur's hatred of him even more. Merlin was very tired of this whole "mortal enemies" shtick. It got old fast.

He spent the rest of the next two hours flicking the back of Tristan's head with rolled up balls of parchment and pretending that Arthur Pendragon didn't exist. It cheered him up immensely.

* * *

He managed to keep up with that beautiful façade for nearly a week – a glorious week full of not giving a shit about much of anything but how well he was doing in his classes and how long he could balance a pencil in midair between them. He spent the first weekend of his last year of school solely in his green and silver four-poster doing pretty much nothing except rereading Lord of the Rings for the eighth time and wishing Hogwarts had a television.

When Tristan tried to make him leave the room to go _do things, _Merlin hissed and clawed. He was left alone after that.

But when Monday afternoon rolled around, he found himself alone in a classroom with Arthur Pendragon. Again.

"I still hate you," Arthur permeated the silence with that annoying, grating voice he so excelled at producing. Merlin, who had been fantasizing about supper's upcoming shepherd's pie, was jolted unpleasantly back to reality. "Just because you helped me out doesn't mean I have to like you."

"Never said you did," Merlin's voice sounded absentminded, but his hackles were slowly rising, and there was a part of him that dared Arthur to keep talking. "I notice you have not sought me out for verbal torture in the last week, however, so you are improving somewhat in your personhood. Congrats."

Arthur snorted under his breath. "As if I need your approval."

Merlin sighed loudly and kicked his feet out in front of him, stretching backward in a straight line. It merited him a curious and lingering look from Arthur. "You could pick a fight with a brick wall. Has anyone ever told you that?"

Arthur frowned. "Yes," he admitted begrudgingly. "More than once."

"Just something to think about," Merlin said, sing-song like, and when he heard something that sounded like a laugh, he thought that maybe, just maybe, the two of them had finally reached a truce.

* * *

Whoever was in charge of life and fate and destiny was probably laughing itself stupid over Merlin's utter idiocy.

When he returned to the Slytherin common room that night after spending far too long in the library half studying and half bothering Leon and Gwen to copy their notes, it was too a buzzing, excited kind of magical energy that flowed through the room, spiking and plummeting, and it left the hyperaware Merlin short of breath.

To the eye, it seemed to be an ordinary enough night, groups of his classmates huddled around the fire or in cliques on the ornate black chairs. The green haze that the lake left seemed darker than ordinary, though, and the discussions going on seemed to be more hushed and focused than Merlin could ever recall them being.

His search for either Tristan or Isolde turned up blank, and as he had very few friends in the rest of his year, he turned to the closest available source for information he had. Mordred was alone next to an empty portrait of a former Slytherin headmaster, arms crossed and in a stew reminiscent of Merlin's own emotions.

"Hey, what's going on?" Merlin dropped into the plushy green chair next to Mordred's spidery black one. Merlin wasn't sure why anyone would pick claws over comfort, but he supposed that was the other boy's business.

Mordred's dark eyes flickered to him in an almost frightened manner. "You don't want to know."

"Trust me, I do," Merlin said, curiosity growing. This could either be very, very good, or very, very bad. Judging on how skittish Mordred's gaze was, he would be placing all of his galleons on the 'bad' option.

Mordred's gaze hit the floor as he whispered in an almost shameful way "Cenred Taber."

Dread grew in the pit of Merlin's stomach, although part of him was pleased that his words from last week had seemed to affect Mordred's views on some level. "What about him?"

"He has an accomplice in the school," Mordred said, eyes darting around as if worried there was an authority figure watching. Merlin copied him, even though he knew better. It was always better to be safe. "Someone who can recruit students, rile up blood supremacy….send messages…"

Merlin's heart dropped to the floor as he realized exactly what Mordred meant. "Where?"

Mordred's eyes went across the common room to the small alcove where the bulletin board that professors regularly put announcements on stood. Knowing quite a few eyes rested on him and not caring in the slightest, he stood up sharply and suddenly, heading at a conspicuously fast pace across the room. When he reached the bulletin board, he stopped dead and his breath disappeared.

Written in dark green ink across the entire board, ripping away any other announcement for Quidditch of Charms Club, were five words that the Ministry of Magic had, two years ago, dubbed to be hate speech with an association with one Cenred Taber.

_THE BLOOD MUST BE CLEANSED._


	6. What I Mean

Hushed whispers and distrusting looks followed Merlin the second he left the Common Room the following day. Ignoring stings of bitterness and anger at his sour reputation, he hunched his shoulders as he walked to the Great Hall for breakfast alone.

The Gryffindor Table seemed to give him a collective glare when he appeared in the entryway, mixed with a few scattered looks from the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff table. Christ, there were other Slytherins in the hall to stare at; they didn't have to make a spectacle out of him.

Merlin decided he wouldn't go visit Leon or Gwen today, there was too much boiling in his stomach. Besides, he didn't want them to look at him like _that. _

"Why's everyone looking at _me _funny?" Merlin complained not quite as loudly as he normally would have when he reached Tristan and Isolde, sitting opposite each other and looking nearly as dreary as he felt.

They exchanged a worried gaze. Merlin felt his heart beat uncomfortably and suddenly his skin seemed too tight. "What is it?"

"No one told you?" Isolde's shifty eyes wouldn't meet his own. Merlin's muscles tightened. The smell of eggs and toast wasn't so appetizing anymore.

"Told me what?"

Another look. Merlin refrained from sighing or punching a wall. Either was up for grabs. "Just tell me, alright? It can't be worse than what I'm imagining."

"I'm sure it _can_," Tristan began, but Isolde kicked him firmly on the shin. "Okay, fine. Someone spread a rumor that you were the one that left the message in the Common Room last night."

Merlin's bones went brittle and his tongue numb, but he forced himself to laugh anyway. "What? That's insane. Why would anyone –?"

_Why would anyone say that about me? What have I done _wrong?

He laughed again, for good measure. It didn't stop Isolde from shooting him a concerned look, but she never really acted on concerned looks, not like Gwen or Leon would, so Merlin wasn't too worried about her worry.

"I dunno, mate," Tristan said with a seemingly unbothered shrug, shoveling potatoes into his mouth. "I bet you anything one of those prick Gryffindors heard about it and decided you were the easiest available target. Arthur Pendragon – He has that creepy stalker vendetta against you. Bet you ten galleons it was him."

Last week, Merlin would have agreed with him a heartbeat, but there was something stopping him now. Arthur wasn't that horrible a human being – was he? He had thanked Merlin for helping him the other night, and it had seemed like they reached a mutual agreement to not scream bloody murder at each other anymore.

"I just – I'm just gonna go to class." When Merlin stood up, it seemed like the whole school was watching, waiting, as if he was going to scream something about blood purity or Muggleborn scum. He swallowed bile. "See you guys later."

Despite the fact that he had four classes that he really, really needed to pass, he decided that today, not going to any of them would do more for his health and well-being than anything else. And he could avoid those awful looks.

Storming out of the hall in a fitful rage, he pondered exactly where he could go. He wasn't one of those students who had a "place" in the castle, somewhere that was uniquely his own, where he knew no one could bother him. He had never been at home enough here to have a place like that.

So, like the boring do-gooder he was, he went to the library.

God, he was predictable.

Avoiding the ever-watchful Professor Monmouth, Merlin ducked into a tiny well-lit corner where he could avoid detection and hopefully human contact for a few hours. Plus, doing all of the homework he was somewhat behind on would hopefully make up for his blatant refusal to participate today.

"I'll go back to class tomorrow," Merlin convinced himself as he pulled a quill and ink out of his bag in order to start on his yet unfinished Defense essay. "I'll be fine then, I can deal with it then –"

It almost sounded true when he put it that way.

After the executive decision not to leave this little nook buried in the bookshelves until very, very late that night or possibly the next morning if he could get away with it, Merlin's outlook became much brighter and more cheerful. He managed to get every ounce of his homework done, a mighty feat in itself, and then even read a book or two for pleasure. It was nice, it was lovely, and Merlin wished every day could be like today.

Well, not really, but he wasn't thinking about what would happen the second he left this tiny pocket of happiness and content. Not a single student had come in to find him and bother him yet, a fact for which he was eternally grateful.

Well, that was until just after dinnertime, when a disgruntled Leon dropped into the formerly and blessedly empty seat next to him. Merlin lowered his book to the desk slowly, carefully, because Leon did not look like he was in the best of moods.

Was he about to blame Merlin for –

"Don't be an idiot, I'm not here to call you a purist and an elitist," Leon read his thoughts with a roll of his eyes, shaking his head in exasperation. Merlin let out a breath he wasn't aware that he'd been holding. "I was against trying to find you at all, as I think you're being a melodramatic moron. But Gwen was worried that you'd starve up here alone, so here you go. Compliments of the nicest girl in school."

He tossed Merlin an apple that Merlin caught, dumbfounded. "You mean you don't think I –"

Leon sighed but there was an underlying fondness in it. "Of course not. Anyone that knows you is fully aware that while you may be stupid, you aren't Taber-level stupid."

"Thanks," Merlin said, biting from the apple with a loud crunch. His stomach had been growling. "I think."

"This isn't to say that the Gryffindors aren't planning to slit your throat at the nearest opportunity. But the creepy Taber wannabe Slytherins have started fan clubs for you."

"I don't know which one's worse," Merlin snorted, though the sentences brought to mind all the horrible things that awaited him should he choose to reintegrate with the world tomorrow. "…So, you and Gwen and Freya…"

"Oh, do shut up," Leon said, reaching across the table to grab at Merlin's loose tie. "And that thing is a disgrace, here."

Merlin had never been more grateful to have friends. He might not have very many, but they came through in the end.

* * *

The next morning made perfectly clear just how many "not friends" Merlin _did _have.

"Did you see him, that's the guy that left the Taber message in the Slytherin Common Room –"

"I hear he's his number one disciple –"

"The blood must be cleansed –"

"His father is the one who –"

Merlin bemoaned his terrible fate to Gwen during Ancient Runes. "I want to die."

"Of course you do, dear," she answered absentmindedly, writing down a particularly difficult translation on her parchment. "Don't worry, it'll all blow over soon. It's not true, so it shouldn't bother you."

Oh, God, Merlin _wished. _No matter what anyone said about his common sense, dress sense, or any other senses, caring too much would always be his fatal flaw.

There wasn't a single student in the school that didn't whisper about him as soon as his back was turned. Even the teachers treated him differently. Nimueh was especially cruel – Merlin got a detention in her class because some Slytherin classmate with oily skin and a perpetually horrible smell slipped him a note with the words _the blood must be cleansed._

The Gryffindors were the absolute worst, however. Gilly and Edwin and the rest of the sixth year boys that Merlin didn't know the names of dumped a bucket of magical slime on him on his way to dinner. It left him turning various shades of green and silver and with a raging headache. At least it was only a teenage prank, he thought miserably as he wiped the gunk off of his tie.

"I'm going up to the hospital wing," Merlin told Gwen and Elena, gazing longingly at the Great Hall. Going inside would mean more dirty looks than he could manage, especially with his new green tinge, but this was the second meal he'd skipped.

"Do you want us to come with you?" Elena asked, concerned and bright at the same time. She hadn't treated him any differently at all, which was as refreshing as he could get right now.

He tried to smile at her, but the sticky goo had made its way to his mouth, so it probably looked more frightening than anything. "Thanks but no thanks, Ellie."

He left before she or Gwen could insist, jumping up staircases as fast as he could in order to avoid the onslaught of students that would be coming from Gryffindor Tower. He would probably be trampled n the madness.

"Oh, you poor dear," Alice said, hurrying over the second Merlin entered the room. "A Weasley's Wizard Wheezes product?"

"Unfortunately," Merlin tried to be as cheery as he could, but his voice was gravelly and held a grimace. Oh, well. He couldn't be expected to hold up his standards during a time like this.

Alice flicked her wand with the words of a charm Merlin didn't recognize, but the result was instantaneous. The ooze covering him seemed to melt off in one fell swoop. Merlin sighed in relief as the added weight and uncomfortableness disappeared.

"Thank you, Alice," Merlin told her with a tight-lipped smile. "You're a gem."

"Don't leave just yet," Alice said, reaching over to feel his forehead. Merlin leaned into the touch just slightly; it reminded him of his mother, who he was missing dreadfully just about now. "I'll make you a cup of tea."

"That'd be lovely, thanks," Merlin said, glad of the affection. Alice nodded affirmatively before bustling back to her office. If he listened closely, he could hear cups clattering inside.

"That was a nice look for you," came a quiet, somewhat subdued, but still laughter-filled voice from across the room. Merlin's eyes flickered to the far corner to find Arthur Pendragon propped up in one of the beds, bandages around head, which was lolling to one side. "Very festive."

As if his day could get any worse.

"Not today, please," Merlin said quietly as he walked gingerly around one of the other beds before sitting down.

Arthur's look was resigned but unsurprised. He didn't speak again, though, for which Merlin was grateful.

At least for ten seconds, anyway, until he decided that he couldn't take the silence.

"What's with the…" Merlin gestured to his own head. Arthur lifted a hand up to touch the bandages with a wince.

"Got hit by a Bludger in Quidditch practice," he shook his head. "Apparently I only have a mild concussion, though. Alice says if Lancelot wasn't there to help in time, I'd probably have suffered brain damage, though."

"Suffered enough of that already, huh?" Merlin chuckled quietly. Arthur groaned.

"Oh, shut up. Gwaine made the same joke. It's not _that _funny."

"Kind of is," Merlin shrugged. Quiet fell for another few seconds before Arthur spoke.

"I didn't – I didn't start that rumor, you know. I mean, I know I hate you and can't stand the sight of you. But I didn't start that. I don't know who did."

He actually sounded sincere, too, instead of sarcastic and tetchy. Merlin would have smiled at him had it not been one of the worst days of his life and if he had been a different person. "I didn't think you did, but thanks for telling me."

Arthur nodded, grimacing slightly, and Merlin couldn't help but cautiously say "You don't know who did start it, do you?"

"No," Arthur frowned. "No, I don't."

Merlin's next question was meant to sound offhand and casual, but came out more scared and vulnerable than anything. "…Do you believe it?"

Arthur was a deer in the headlights. "I…I don't know."

Merlin grinned in spite of himself. Last year, Arthur would have reveled at the chance to prove Merlin was a dark wizard bent on the destruction of Mugglekind. "Well, that's better than nothing, I suppose. Better than most people's reaction, really. Can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I might like you more than most of the school right now."

"Not much of a compliment from the future Dark Lord of All," Arthur said, but he was laughing, and Merlin almost found himself joining in.

"Oh, are we bonding now?" Alice came out of her office with a plate holding two silver cups with a container of sugar between them. She beamed at them happily. "Instead of stewing in House rivalries?"

"If you want to call it bonding," Arthur said, both of them blushing. It seemed despite their best efforts, Alice had picked up on the taut and angry vibe between them.

"I'm sorry, Arthur, would you like some tea as well?" Alice asked, but Arthur shook his head.

"I'm good, thanks. Besides, it probably can't be good for me." He pointed up to the bandages with a self-deprecating smile.

"Oh, of course not, dear, silly me," Alice laughed at herself.

Merlin, on the other hand, took his tea thankfully. After adding more sugar than strictly necessary, he downed nearly all of it in one go. "Thank you so much, Alice."

"Do you want to stay a while?" Alice's voice was so sweet and concerned that Merlin knew she must have heard one of the whispers today. "Professor Gaius will be coming up later. I'm sure he'd love to speak with you about your career options at the end of the year. He's so hoping you'll go into Potions."

Merlin wished he was a better person, the kind of person who could say yes and have dinner with his professors and be charming and jovial and cheerful. But he just wanted to crawl into bed and never wake up again.

"That sounds lovely, Alice, but I have a lot of homework tonight," he said with a forced smile. "Thank you, though."

"Of course," she said quietly, understanding. "Let me know if there's anything I can do for you."

Merlin smiled at her again. He looked back at Arthur, whose gaze was solely trained on Merlin, with a kind of curiosity in his eyes. When he saw him looking back, though, he went back to staring at his lap and messing around with his bandages.

"Have a good night," Merlin said, looking at Alice, but it was almost directed at Arthur, too.


	7. Sorry, Really

Merlin was not bitter, nor was he stewing, but – yes, he was both of those things.

He'd been in Nimueh's office rearranging her bookshelves and papering her walls without magic in exchange for his note passing, or lack thereof. Her crystalline gaze said that the reason for him being stuck here didn't have anything to do with class and everything to do with his new reputation.

Goddamn Gryffindors.

All of them were the same.

"Run this to Professor Gorlois and you can be through for the evening," Nimueh interrupted his banging about with no real purpose, hardly looking up as she lifted a sealed and stamped letter off her desk. "I fully expect to see you here tomorrow at seven. You've missed three of my classes since your first infraction, which earns you another detention here with me. I expect better of my star pupil."

Merlin was torn between making a comment about super fucking high standards or casually mentioning that these detentions had much more to do with his new status of future dark wizard. "Of course," Merlin, disgruntled, ripped it from her hands with unnecessary force.

Stalking out of her office with much more attitude than he usually would have, Merlin entered a deserted hall. It was approaching eleven at night, because Nimueh, for all her appearing with smiles and prettiness, was actually an evil bitch. Everyone agreed, it wasn't just him.

Merlin let out a sigh of relief at the emptiness. Approaching on two weeks since the message had been left, and still he was the primary blame for it. At least the whispers had started to die down.

Two floors later and Merlin still hadn't run into another human soul. But Morgause's Charms classroom was only a few feet away, and then he would be forced into interaction with her.

"Ah, Merlin," Morgause smiled icily when Merlin knocked on the open door. She beckoned him inside with a crooked finger. Slightly uncomfortable in presence, as always, Merlin lifted up the letter awkwardly.

"This is from Professor Nimueh," Merlin stepped forward to place it on her desk. Morgause looked down at it expressionlessly for half a second before glancing back up at Merlin similarly.

"Thank you," Morgause said without sounding like she meant it. Merlin shifted under her assessing eyes. She had graduated from Hogwarts in his third year, and it never wasn't creepy that the girl he once saw drunk and snogging a statue was now his Charms teacher. "Is that all?"

"That should be it –" Merlin was anxious to make with a quick getaway, but a voice from the door heading into Morgause's private chambers interrupted his hurried words.

"Hey, love; do you know what happened to my bag –?"

Merlin did a horrendous double take as Morgana Pendragon, clad in only a black button-down shirt and a pair of lacy knickers, hair messy and makeup smudged, appeared in the doorway. He gaped at her for a moment – her eyes flickered to him and face immediately dropped into the same expression. Merlin couldn't even look back to see Morgause's reaction because of the complete shock running through his veins.

"Uh, um, uh," Merlin felt himself blushing. Morgause stood up from her desk, eyes alight with flame and worry, to stand next to Morgana, whose mouth resembled a fish.

"You're not to tell anyone of this," Morgause hissed venomously under her breath, but Merlin still picked up on the scared and desperate undertone.

"Um," Merlin said, mind drawing a complete blank as he tried very hard not to let his eyes wander downward on Morgana's body.

"Please," Morgana pleaded, sounding somewhat human instead of super scary witch lady, the aesthetic she gave off at any given time.

"Um."

Morgause's eyes narrowed. "What do you want? A passing grade in my class?"

Merlin's throat unstuck. "I can do that on my own."

"_What_, then?"

"Uh, nothing?" Merlin tried with an awkward, somewhat faked smile at two of the most frightening women he'd ever had the terror of meeting, both of whom were giving him identical looks of anger. Christ, it wasn't _his _fault they were anything but discreet. "Really. I won't tell anyone about – uh, whatever this is." He waved a hand. "You have my word."

"And how trustworthy is that?" Morgause sounded like she was about to go into a rant, but Morgana stopped her with a hand to her hip and a significant and unreadable look at Merlin.

"You can trust him," she said, eyes intent and serious. "You have _my _word on that."

A chill went through Merlin's bones for unexplained reasons.

"I'm – I'm just gonna –"

He was not ashamed to say he bolted out of the room as fast as his wobbly legs could carry him. He made it a grand total of three corridors later before he started giggling quietly to himself.

Christ on a crutch, everything interesting in school only ever happened to _him_.

"Merlin, wait."

Emotions mixed, Merlin looked backward to see Morgana, now thankfully dressed in a skirt and a Slytherin tie. She smiled nervously at him as he slowed down to her pace. When they were evenly footed, she began to speak.

"Look, it's not just fucking, alright? It's a real, healthy relationship, and if you fuck that up by reporting it to Kilgharrah, or telling one of your little friends about it, there _will _be hell to pay."

Merlin raised his hands in mock defense as they rounded the corner leading to the spiral staircase. "I meant what I said. I won't tell anyone. I'm really very good at not telling people things. I don't tell people things all the time."

Morgana eyed him critically. "As long as we're on the same page."

They walked in silence for a few moments before Merlin felt like he had to break in as inappropriately as possible. "Black lace. Very nice."

"Oh, shut it," Morgana hit him not very lightly on the back of the head. He rubbed it, wincing.

"Well, I guess that removes the tension between the two of us."

A disbelieving eyebrow was raised. "_What _tension?"

Somewhat wishing he didn't have such an awful case of motor mouth, Merlin finished as unashamedly as he could. "First night of school, when you were asking me about Hogsmeade? I almost thought you were asking me out."

She stared at him for a moment before breaking out laughing. And not just pretty girl giggles and smirks, but the whole snorting package.

"It's not that funny," Merlin pulled a childish face. "What else was I supposed to think?"

"Maybe that I was inviting you to a party. Or that we were having a House-wide get-together. Or that I knew someone would be there that's interested in meeting you." Her voice turned sly at the mention of the last one. Merlin turned to face her, curious.

"What do you mean?"

"Let's take a rain check on that, pretty boy," Morgana laughed when they reached the bottom of the staircase. "It seems like you have a lot on your plate already – did you know that you're in line to overtake Cenred Taber in most hated dark wizard in school?"

So close. Merlin almost groaned. So close to escaping this conversation without a mention of the dreaded rumor. He decided to play it off the way he always did – with really bad jokes and too loud of laughter. "I did know, actually. I'm thinking of snapping on Thursday, for future reference. Let all the Muggleborns know."

"I'm sure everyone will be very excited to hear," Morgana began to walk the opposite direction of the Slytherin Common Room, over toward the Potions dungeons, without a word, only the clopping of her heels on the stone floor.

"Where are you going?" Merlin called after her retreating form. "It's past curfew."

"Goodnight, Emrys," was the only response the shadows had for him.

Merlin stared after her disappeared form before shaking his head in exasperation. This was approaching on one of the strangest nights he'd had in a while.

But it was the first time he had seen Morgana Fay act like an actual human being with a life, emotions, and a purpose other than scaring the living crap out of everyone she came across, so there was something to be said for it.

Merlin learned knew things about people every day.

"I hear Nimueh keeps finding excuses to give you detention," Leon said at lunch the next day. Merlin had made himself at home at the Ravenclaw table, squished between him and Freya, because not enough galleons in the world could get him to sit with the Slytherins when half of them wanted him to sign their bag.

"I deal with it," Merlin shrugged, not letting on how bothered he actually was at the bigotry. Slytherins were widely known as the least tolerant of the houses, but the Gryffindors always won the prize in his mind. Sure, Muggleborns had been treated quite awfully in the past, and still were to an extent, and Salazar Slytherin hadn't the best ideals in mind, but the entire house kept repeatedly being blamed for one or two transgressors.

Just wasn't right.

Leon knew his façade too well. "Sure you do."

"I think the rumors have quieted down," Freya said as she picked at her food. "I haven't heard any in the past couple of days."

"Really?" Merlin's spirits lifted considerably at that news.

"No," Freya winced up at him and Merlin's face fell. "But I thought it would make you feel better."

"You could have kept lying and said yes," Merlin told her. "Generally a good idea. Although I do hate being lied to, so maybe it's better this way."

"Yes, you're a human contradiction," Leon said not without fondness through bites of his steak. "Can we talk about something else now?"

"Like how beautiful and wonderful and perfect Guinevere is?" Merlin snorted, earning him a glare. "That's all you ever want to talk about."

"It's the only thing _worth _talking about," Leon replied snottily, and Merlin did a mini-victory dance in his mind for having Leon at least admit his sorry and besotted state when it came to the Hufflepuff girl.

Who was, coincidentally, heading over to their table with another person in tow, the sight of whom made Merlin do a double take.

"Why is Gwen coming over here with _Arthur Pendragon _of all people?" He hissed at his friends, craning his neck for a better view of the pair of them. Gwen, small and dark, was leading the large and golden Gryffindor over with a yank on his sleeve.

Leon and Freya squinted over as well.

"That's a mystery," Freya shook her head.

The mystery was solved when the two of them were face to face with the trio, Gwen immediately making herself at home on the bench opposite them. Arthur looked down at it uncomfortably for a second – probably worried sitting at the Ravenclaw table would bruise his Gryffindor pride – then looking unsurely at Merlin for so short a time he must of imagined it. He sat down after that, however, albeit still appearing untrusting and skittish.

"Elyan says Arthur needs to talk to you," Gwen informed Merlin, no nonsense, as if this was a regular, everyday occurrence, Merlin was sought out by Gryffindor golden boys for reasons other than maiming and torture.

"Um, okay?" Merlin blinked at Arthur a few times, just to make sure he was real. He was. He was also determinedly not making eye contact.

"Uh," Arthur began, biting his lip. Gwen, the most tactful of them all, immediately got to her feet, motioning the Ravenclaws to do the same. Freya stood with her within an instant, Leon following after a 'what the fuck' look at Merlin. Merlin just shook his head.

"We'll be…elsewhere," Gwen said, sing-song-like, and Merlin was probably going to kill her. At least with the disappearance of his friends, he didn't have to worry about their judgment for whatever happened next.

Everyone else seemed to be in a judging mood – the Gryffindor and the Slytherin boys at the Ravenclaw table were gaining a few extra glances, especially since it was the Quidditch prodigy and the dark lord prototype.

"What did you need?" Merlin asked a still quiet Arthur cautiously. He and the other boy hadn't done much talking since their run-in at the hospital wing, other than a few half-hearted jibes and moans about homework during Alchemy class. Arthur was still on edge around Merlin, but he was getting better. Sort of.

"Well, the thing is – I –" Arthur jabbed a finger in the air as if it would articulate his yet to be made point.

"Yes?"

"I need some help with the Alchemy homework," Arthur said after a moment, a kind of triumph in his voice. Merlin refrained from making sarcastic comments about when to admit you need assistance. "And as you're the only other student in class…Look, I know I hate you, but I need this favor, okay?"

"You want me to…tutor you," Merlin said slowly, almost uncomprehendingly.

"Yes," Arthur said after brief hesitation, voice forceful but eyes darting back and forth.

"Just checking," Merlin said faintly, wondering what the state of his life had become. "Wow. Um. This is an unexpected turn of events. My thirteen year old bully asking me for homework help. This could be the start of a very bad B-list movie."

Arthur narrowed his eyebrows, annoyed. "Are you going to help me or not?"

"Sure," Merlin answered automatically, though he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because Arthur, for all his irritating qualities and refusal to believe anything decent about him, was one of the only people left in the school who still thought he was a human being. Arthur blinked, obviously surprised, a reaction Merlin enjoyed. "What the hell?"

"Is that your attitude toward everything?" Arthur asked, snobbery shining through.

Merlin thought for less than a second. "Pretty much, yeah."

"Well, just tell me when and where then," Arthur said with a half-smile half-grimace and not a single thank you spoken as he raised himself to his feet.

"How about the library, Saturday after next?" Merlin shuffled through his schedule mentally within a few seconds.

"Isn't that the first Hogsmeade weekend?" Arthur said with a raised eyebrow.

"Is it?" Merlin said, and then thought it through. "Oh, yeah. Sunday, then?"

"Sure," Arthur nodded in assent. "How does two sound?"

"Grand. See you then?"

"Be there with bells on."

The wonders of being civil with Arthur Pendragon. Merlin should write a book on making out of these interactions alive and unscathed. It would become a best-seller, he was certain.

"Hey, look, you made it through a conversation with him without blowing him to bits! Or him blowing you to bits. There was no blowing action happening."

"God, Gwen, do you have to put all the euphuisms in there?"

"I didn't _mean _to. So what did he want?"

"You didn't _know_?"

"Elyan just told me he needed to talk to you, that's all. Looked rightly pissed about it, too."

"Apparently I'm going to be his tutor."

"His…"

"You heard me right. Arthur Pendragon wants me to tutor him. And I currently like him more than I like half of the year. God, what has my life become?"


	8. Tell the Boys

Of all the rituals that Hogwarts students went through during their time at school, Hogsmeade was the prevailing favorite.

Weekends where the students received the privilege to go the neighboring village for a day of relaxing fun never failed to rile up the student body aged third year or older. In the days leading up to the first weekend of the year, it was all anyone could talk about.

Merlin, however, knew the truth.

Nothing good happened on Hogsmeade weekends.

_Nothing._

Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

On Merlin's first Hogsmeade weekend, back when he was thirteen and naïve, he had been oh so excited to get out of the school and visit Honeydukes, the Shrieking Shack, Zonkos; all the wonderful things that he had only dreamed of, beautiful things spoken of by older students in soft, reverent tones.

Unfortunately, third year was the year that Arthur Pendragon decided to make his life miserable, and Merlin had been locked in a Honeydukes storeroom for six hours.

And now tomorrow he was to be the boy's Alchemy tutor. Oh, how the tables had turned.

Although many of his Hogsmeade incidents were Arthur-related, there were a few that had nothing to do with Gryffindor snobs.

There was the time he had gotten some rotten, expired candy from Honeydukes in fifth year and had been stuck in the hospital wing for three weeks with ears that would not stop growing – his bonding moments with Alice had come directly from this experience – the time in fourth year where Tristan had dared him to go into the Shrieking Shack and he ended up pissing himself over what turned out to be merely a rat scurrying on the floor, and no one could forget the occasion when Mithian Moore had rudely dumped butterbeer on his head in the Three Broomsticks as a way of breaking things off with him.

Ah, memories.

Merlin was against going to Hogsmeade at all this year, but Gwen's pleading face combined with the promise of free butterbeer made him relent to her persistent convincing.

Besides, you would have to be a _robot t_o say no to anything Gwen asked. Ever. Gwen was perfect.

"I'm so glad you came!" Her beaming smile was almost reward enough when Merlin joined her, Leon, Elena, and Percival at the carriages leaving the school. After a curious look at Percival, he then looked at Elena, who was nearly jumping up and down.

Looked like _somebody _had a date.

"Where's Freya?" Merlin asked conversationally, though he was disappointed not to see her there.

"She has a date," Elena waggled her eyebrows disturbingly. "With Mithian Moore."

Had Merlin mentioned the fact that he was dumped because not only did Mithian think he was an ass, but she was also a lesbian?

'Cause yeah. That happened.

"I'm happy for her," Merlin smiled, and he really was. He had gotten over Mithian ages ago, but it was always fun to complain, even mentally. Besides, it wasn't like he kept his own sexuality quiet. Mithian could do what she liked, and Freya was pretty much the second nicest person Merlin knew.

After Gwen, of course.

"So how are you, Percival?" Merlin said as their carriage pulled up. Gwen and Elena got in first, with Percival, Merlin, and Leon falling closely behind.

"I'm good," Percival said as he took a seat, scooting over to make room for the two bodies behind him. Merlin didn't actually know him that well; they'd only spoken a few times throughout the years. Merlin did know three irrefutable facts about the Hufflepuff, however. First, he was a Beater for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. Second, because of this status, he had girls practically crawling in his lap at every given opportunity. And third, Elena was absolutely and utterly infatuated with him. "What about you?"

"Fine, fine," Merlin said, and it was almost the truth. Next week it would be a month since the rumors about him had started circulating, and it had pretty much died down to the occasional glare from one of the younger Gryffindors. And because he was a good person who knew how to butter people up, he asked "How's Quidditch going?"

He really didn't care, but the question allowed Percival to vault into detailed descriptions of training and maneuvers and how when November the ninth came, they were going to steamroll Gryffindor. Elena shot him a grateful look before gazing enamored up at her date. Merlin looked to his other side to exchange a cursory glance with Leon.

Quidditch lasted them all the way to the village, when the thestrals came to a screeching halt. Following Leon out the carriage door, Merlin had to squint in the bright sunlight of the busy village. Autumn was a good time for Hogsmeade, not cold enough to see the snow yet, just golden brown and leafy, just bordering on chilly. Shrugging his jacket more tightly around his shoulders, Merlin waited for the rest of his friends to exit the carriage. It took off the second Gwen stepped outside, causing her to stumble slightly before Elena helped her up.

"So what's on everyone's agenda?" Merlin asked, knowing that he'd be third wheeling it, even though Gwen and Leon weren't technically together. For all intents and purposes they were, and Merlin would most assuredly be left out.

This was why Freya should be here.

"Percival and I are going to go to Zonkos!" Elena said with beaming triumph, lacing her arm with Percival's. He smiled down at her dotingly. Or sickeningly. One of the two.

"Why don't the three of us go to the Three Broomsticks and get a drink, then?" Gwen said, tactful as ever. "That way we won't intrude."

Elena began to protest, but Gwen waved her down. "Go have fun, dear."

She didn't need too much convincing, for the pair disappeared in the next instant.

"They're quite cute," Gwen hummed as she started down the street busy with Hogwarts students. Although some were still in their robes, most were dressed in Muggle clothing. Merlin was more comfortable than he had been in weeks in an old blue hoodie and worn jeans. "I hope their day goes well."

Merlin hummed noncommittally, falling a step behind as Leon began to speak to Gwen in that soft, besotted tone of his. Merlin respectfully tuned him out, focusing on nothing but his footsteps for a few seconds. It was nice. It was peaceful.

"Hello, Emrys."

It didn't last long.

Glancing to his left, he found that Morgana Fay had fallen into step next to him, also wearing Muggle clothing, a green button-down and a black skirt. She looked ordinary enough, but there was a look in her eyes that set Merlin just slightly on edge.

Ahead, Gwen and Leon were so absorbed in conversation that they didn't notice Merlin's new company.

"Hi, Morgana," he responded, shifting under her hawkish eyes. "Good to see you."

"You as well," Morgana smiled. They were silent for half a beat before Merlin broke in.

"How's Morgause?"

Morgana half-frowned, but it didn't have any of the fervor behind it that Merlin was so accustomed to seeing on her face. "None of your business."

Merlin raised his arms. "Just a question, no need to get testy. What did you need?"

"Have you not heard anything I've told you today?" Morgana raised a delicately plucked eyebrow at him.

Merlin pondered for a moment. "Um…unless you count giving me cryptic messages before melting into the walls, no. Unless your affair with the teacher is just a ruse for how badly you want me?"

She stared at him skeptically before snorting in a very unladylike manner. "You never know when to shut up, do you?"

"It's a gift," Merlin smiled, close-mouthed.

"Come to the Hog's Head with me," she changed the subject with a charming, off-setting grin. "I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine."

Merlin swallowed. He had an unsettling feeling in his gut when he looked at her bright blue eyes that hid unsolved mysteries and a feral bite. He didn't want to follow her anywhere. He liked Morgana, he really did, but there was something about her that made his stomach churn.

"Gwen and Leon and I are headed to the Three Broomsticks, actually," Merlin said, gesturing up ahead to where his friends were steadfastly ignoring him. Or so it seemed. "If you'd like to join us there, you'd be more than welcome to."

She surveyed him carefully, judgment in her eyes. "Are you sure? I think you could benefit quite a bit from this meeting."

The feeling intensified. "I'm good." He said firmly.

Her ferociousness stopped in a single, solitary second, leaving her face to be filled only with mild disappointment and apathy. "Your loss, Emrys. Come and find me if you should happen to change your mind."

She waltzed off into the crowd, away from the group of students that had congregated in the direction of the more popular pub. Merlin watched her go with trepidation and slight fear.

His friends, it seemed, had not been nearly as shut away as Merlin had previously believed, for Leon turned around, gesturing him a few steps forward urgently.

"What was that about?" He asked in a hushed voice. Gwen looked curious as well, and both had concern in their eyes.

Merlin hunched his shoulders and tried to fold in on himself. He didn't trust Morgana, but there was something…something stopping him from saying anything about the conversation. Something unnamable.

"I think she wanted me to get a drink with her?" Merlin shrugged haplessly. "I don't know. She's scary. I just stammered my way out of it."

It was close enough to the truth. Leon and Gwen accepted it at face value, nodding simultaneously. As Gwen began to say "But why would she –", Merlin cut her off.

"Look, there's the pub," Merlin gestured toward the open door of the beautiful oak building that was home to some of the most delicious drinks known to mankind. "Drinks are on me."

He knew they were suspicious, and didn't care, only doubled his stride in order to open the door for his friends. They both gave him looks as they passed through, Gwen's caring and worried and Leon's giving off more of a 'you fucking idiot' kind of vibe.

It was much warmer in the building, both due to the crackling fires and all of the bodies of students and other patrons bustling through the building. Merlin squeezed himself through the crowd in order to lay claim to one of the last tables available in the vicinity. He trusted that his friends were following him.

"I'll go get the butterbeers, unless you'd like something stronger," Merlin punched Leon lightly on the arm. His only response was a serious shake of his head and long-suffering sigh. A resounding no came from Gwen's side of the table as well, so in five minutes, three opened butterbeers sat between them.

"So how is your history project coming along?" Leon asked Gwen with his bottle pressed nearly to his lips. He sounded genuinely interested, bless his soul. Gwen laughed at him, eyes crinkling up.

"Like you care," she said teasingly.

"I do care!" Leon protested. "I care deeply, Gwen. Very, very deeply."

"_Sure_," she drank from her own bottle. "I believe that."

They continued in the same flirting match as Merlin watched, laughing quietly into his own drink at the game. They never failed to amuse, that was for certain. But watching them was like Tristan and Isolde all over again, an unbreakable bond forming between one to the other with no room for Merlin. Of course, it wasn't nearly as awful as the Tristan and Isolde situation. At least Merlin had never slept with either of Leon or Gwen.

And they were kind of like meant to be, too, but Merlin wasn't sappy enough to say that out loud. Even if it wasn't about himself; he had a certain reputation of terror to uphold.

Still, it was hard to watch everyone else's happiness sometimes.

He wondered about what was happening in the Hog's Head at this very moment.

Merlin stood up. "I'll see you guys later."

"What, where are you going?" Gwen broke off her banter with Leon to look up, eyes wide. "Stay, Merlin."

"Are you being a brat because we're not including you?" Leon rolled his eyes up at him. "Don't be a baby."

"I'm not being a baby," Merlin refuted his statement by sticking out his tongue. "I just have to go and talk to someone, okay? I'll meet you at Honeydukes in an hour. Gives you plenty of time to flirt without interference."

"We're not flirting –" Gwen's face went pink and Leon's eyes widened fractionally.

"Just – I'll see you soon." Merlin waved and bolted, leaving his butterbeer unfinished at the table, before either of them could stop him.

The moment he escaped the tight confinement of the busy pub and got out into the sunshine, Merlin realized he was being really fucking stupid.

He was _not _going to the Hog's Head. He was _not _going to find Morgana Fay. Both of those things were stupid and pointless and stupid.

He was just feeling bitter and left out because his friends were happy and everyone thought he was evil; that was all. He was okay. His life wasn't in the most ideal place, but he was okay.

Other than the being really fucking _stupid _part.

"Idiot," he chided himself as he looked back at the doorway to the Three Broomsticks. If he went back right now, his friends would forgive his strange idiosyncrasies. They would have a couple more butterbeers and have a great afternoon shooting the shit and laughing at nothing.

And Merlin would get over his stupid melodrama.

Emphasis on _stupid. _

"Fuck, sorry – Emrys."

Speaking of stupid.

"Hi, Pendragon," Merlin righted himself as a figure barreled out of the Three Broomsticks and into his chest.

Arthur frowned at him. "Hi. What are you doing blocking the doorway?"

"I…Don't really know," Merlin decided to tell the truth, or at least part of it. "Sorry 'bout that, mate, I'll be moving now."

"We still on for tomorrow?" Arthur asked as Merlin side-stepped him.

"Oh, right, tutoring, of course," Merlin smiled. He was actually a bit nervous about that whole thing. It wasn't because Arthur was intimidating or anything, he was kind of like a neutered puppy. But some level of friendliness with the person who had hated him for years was still a bit disconcerting. "Two o'clock?"

Arthur nodded in affirmation. "Yeah. That."

"Okay. Um. I'm going inside, so. Bye?"

Arthur opened his mouth in response, but a shout from down the street cut him off. Both boys simultaneously turned to look for its source.

Standing on the street corner next to the sweets shop was an unidentifiable figure, clad entirely in black. They appeared like they were actually emitting black smoke from their body. Merlin squinted, but couldn't tell who it was. He couldn't even tell if the figure was male or female, young or old. There was something obscuring them from view.

"_The blood must be cleansed!_"

As if the words were a cry to arms, more smoky figures seemed to appear out of thin air, or at least from the alleyways and other street corners. Whirling to all of his sides, there were people moving closer to the pub, to the stores – there were three dozen, at the very least. And they were approaching a panicked, yelling student body.

"Shit," Merlin heard Arthur whisper. He echoed the sentiment.

A heavy, tangible moment passed, one that moved through molasses, slow as can be, as if it was waiting for the perfect moment to speed up into a fiery explosion.

It did.

"_Stupify!_"

"_Petrificus Totalus!"_

_"Crucio!"_

Merlin gasped a breath at the last one. "Oh, God," he half-strangled, and looking across, he saw his own panic mirrored in Arthur's eyes as the street raged around them, the black figures throwing curses and the students screaming and yelling and trying to fight back, trying to run away.

Merlin's mind had a plan, a plan to grab Arthur's shoulder and shove the two of them into the entryway to the pub and remove them from the action. Gwen and Leon and so many others were in there, they could find a way to keep them quiet, keep them out of harm's way, and organize a way to fight back –

"_Avada Kedavra!" _

The corner of Merlin's eye saw the trajectory of the green light, arcing across the street corner, spinning and hurtling toward the space between the two boys, moving as if in slow motion, as if Merlin himself had slowed time down, because the killing light was headed straight toward Arthur's chest.

Merlin tackled Arthur to the ground.


	9. Where to Find My Body

The frightened screams dulled into background noise as Arthur hit the ground, Merlin's right hand pressing against his stomach and his left breaking the fall. Green light whizzed past his ear, slamming into the building in a great spark.

Merlin flipped around so quickly he nearly landed backward against Arthur. The shadowy figure was still there, staring down at them without moving. There was no way to see their face, so Merlin couldn't tell what they were thinking. He whipped out his wand regardless, ready to do whatever it took to get him away –

But he didn't have to. The figure faltered before bolting down the street, into the midst of light from wands, dueling and yelling and all the other things that came with an attack on a village.

Merlin didn't have time to consider what the running would mean; flipping back over, he fell to the ground next to Arthur. The boy was breathing heavily, still flat on his back, and though he appeared shocked, he was relatively uninjured. Merlin let out a sigh of relief.

"Are you okay?" He asked, but Arthur was already pulling himself into a seated position, shock gone from his face and a wild light there instead.

"We have to go and help," he said, scrambling to his feet. Merlin followed suit, though it was with far less haste and a lot more concern.

"You just had a killing curse thrown at you –"

"And someone else might be casting one on a first year right now," Arthur's wand was out now, and there was a furious set to his mouth as he started marching toward the action.

Merlin followed, obviously. He may not be a Gryffindor, ready to march into battle at the slightest sign of struggle, but he wasn't a coward. People would need help. Still, it would have been nice of Arthur to say thank you. Not a present worry at the moment, with his heart still pumping adrenaline, but something that he should bring up later.

Unless, of course, another killing curse came hurtling his way.

He suddenly realized how important that was. Not dying.

The fray reached them before they reached it, and suddenly curses and hexes flew everywhere around Merlin. He thanked his quick reflexes as he ducked, dragging Arthur down with him.

"_Stupefy_!" Arthur managed to hit one of the figures as he knelt, and Merlin, eyes searching for another, found one's legs only a few yards from his own. Silently and without a spell, he blasted the person backward and into the Zonkos building.

Merlin wasn't sure what was making him stay next to Arthur, but when one of the dozens of shadows noticed the two, he shoved the other boy to the other side of a few Hufflepuff upperclassmen who were doing quite well for themselves.

"They don't seem to be very organized," he hissed in Arthur's ear. "If we can take out that one over there that's only in a defensive position, not even casting any spells…."

"I'll flank him from his left, you from his right," Arthur muttered back, almost too quiet to hear. "You distract so that I can stun him."

Merlin nodded, situation too dire to argue. He hadn't seen any green light as of yet, but if one of the figures was willing to go to that kind of lengths for schoolchildren…

Arthur ducked around a few more students who had formed a kind of defensive line, while Merlin went the long way around. The figure in question hadn't been cursing anyone, Merlin had took notice, only standing in the background, wand out in a threatening manner so that he couldn't be perceived as anything less than a threat. Not the bravest of the bunch, as illustrated.

As he reached a position slightly obscured from the figure's view, he realized that from this angle, he had a much better chance of hitting the target than Arthur would. The boy had others blocking his viewpoint, mainly students, but a few of the shadows as well. Merlin could definitely…

Stepping out just slightly to gain better aim, he cried "_Stupefy_!"

The spell hit the figure straight in the chest; they crumpled to the ground. Merlin felt a thrill of victory that was quickly cut short by another figure, one that had formerly been fighting younger Ravenclaws with his back to his comrade that took notice of the fall.

They spun around, wand brandished, and Merlin hardly had a second to react before the person's gaze met his own and a flash of white light issued from his wand. He slashed it up and down three times, pointed directly at Merlin.

Nothing happened.

The light didn't reach him, didn't even leave the tip of the wand. Merlin frowned, confused – was it some kind of spell that was more internal, did something without physical repercussions, what was the blinding pain in his head –

_Oh._

A hand up to his face told Merlin he was bleeding. Bleeding quite profusely.

That was new.

"Hey!"

Merlin blinked at the sound of Arthur's voice. He was somewhat lost in a kind of limbo, where he couldn't move or breathe or do anything other than watch. Arthur had drawn the figure's attention to himself, waving and thrusting his wand angrily at them. It seemed he'd noticed Merlin's bloody state. He wondered vaguely how bad it was.

Merlin got an up close and personal look at that – when the figure turned toward Arthur, despite the Gryffindor being prepared and ready for the offensive, he had even less time than Merlin. The same white light appeared in the figure's wand, and this time, even across the din, Merlin could hear the curse uttered.

"_Sectumsempra."_

It wasn't Arthur's face the figure cut; it was his chest, his sides. Four lacerations appeared, two directly down his torso and one on each of his sides leading down to his hips. Blood began to gush immediately, and Arthur crumpled to the ground in the next second.

Merlin broke out of the limbo in order to point a shaky wand at the figure. He didn't know what spell he was going to cast, what spell he should cast, what he had the strength to cast, all he knew was that pain and anger was seeping through his entire being. If he had the strength, he could perform an Unforgivable right now.

He didn't.

_"Petrificus Totalus!"_

The figure didn't expect the spell, didn't even turn in time to see it; he had already dismissed Merlin as No Longer a Threat.

Ha. Merlin showed them.

They snapped their legs and arms together and fell to the ground like a board. If Merlin had been anywhere close to his right mind, he would have taken the time to check and see exactly what the glamour on the figures was and if he could remove it.

But there was blood dripping down his face and Arthur was moaning and shaking on the autumn leaves that covered the Hogsmeade streets, and everyone else was occupied with their own duels, their own injured.

Merlin didn't know how he had the strength – later, he would pin it on adrenaline and his innate magical abilities – but he managed to lift Arthur up off the ground and push the boy to his side. He wondered why he was saving him again when he hadn't got a thank you the first time around, but Arthur's weight was already heavy against his side, his blood pooling onto Merlin's body and his head lolling on his shoulder.

Merlin had to get him out of here.

Honeydukes was next door; he could do that. He could get Arthur in there. He could get them out of the line of fire. He could to that.

It must have been the greatest luck in the world, because no other shadow figure interrupted Merlin's slow and dragging stride. He wouldn't have been able to fight them, and Arthur was obviously in no shape.

The glass on the door had already been shattered, so it wasn't hard to gain entry. It was entirely empty; the workers and the students obviously had gone outside to fight. Merlin was curious why they hadn't had anyone there to help take care of the younger students, curious if the younger students were fighting – thank God first and second years weren't allowed on Hogsmeade weekends. That would have been nightmarish.

"Arthur, Arthur, are you okay, are you okay?" Merlin had to let the other boy go, his energy fading the moment he was able to relax slightly. He lowered Arthur's body to the ground. The bleeding had only gotten progressively worse, and Arthur's eyes were out of focus, glassy and not seeing. He let out a pathetic kind of whimper, the type he never, ever would if he wasn't in horrible agony.

Merlin didn't know why he could hardly feel his own cuts. He could taste the blood that was dripping, feel it on his skin, but the pain was dulled. Muted. Not even there.

"Okay. I have to – I can fix this," Merlin said, talking more to himself than Arthur. He didn't even know if Arthur could hear him.

He tried to think of a healing spell, any healing spell, but he came up blank. Alice would be so disappointed in him. Alice. He had to get Arthur to Alice. That obviously couldn't happen, not yet, but soon. Soon he would get to Alice. He just needed to do something to prevent Arthur from dying of blood loss first.

He knew no spells. But he didn't need any.

Screwing his eyes shut, Merlin held out a hand over Arthur's stomach, the center point of the four lacerations. Breathing in deeply, he hoped Arthur couldn't see this.

He breathed out with a single thought in his mind.

He sat in silence for a few moments, not opening his eyes, just focusing on the erratic beat of his heart and the blood in his eyes that he knew would blur his vision when he opened them.

"Merlin – Merlin, Merlin, you're not okay –"

"Arthur?"

Merlin wiped the red from his eyelids before he opened them. Arthur was still lying down, and his wounds were still visible and spurting blood, but they looked like they had been messily sewed together like stitches – like a half-assed job of a true healing spell.

Merlin let out a shaky breath. That could have gone much, much worse. It would save Arthur from losing too much blood at the very least, until they could get him to the hospital wing.

"Your face – it's bleeding everywhere," Arthur said, raspy and gasping but nonetheless concerned.

"I noticed," Merlin said dimly, although that wasn't exactly the truth.

"I know a spell – though is it the one you used on me?" Arthur said through deep, shuddering breaths, head tilted back against the floor. "_Vulerna Sanetur._ Lancelot wants to be a healer. I help him study."

"Yeah, that's the one I used on you," Merlin lied. "But I'm okay. I'm fine. Are you okay? I don't think you are."

"Better than before, thanks to you," Arthur bit down hard on his lip, obviously still in great pain. Merlin smiled slightly at the half of a thank you, though. He deserved at least two full ones, but he would take what he could get. "But you really – I think I can probably cast it – probably."

"I'm fine."

Arthur managed to give him a suffering sort of look. "There isn't an inch of your face that isn't covered in your own blood."

"Some of it might be yours," Merlin argued pointlessly, petulantly.

Arthur groaned. "How do you have the energy for banter?"

"The day I cannot banter is the day I die," Merlin said, logical as ever.

Arthur sighed, stuttering, as he reached a hand to touch Merlin's botched job of patching up his wounds. "This isn't your area of expertise, is it?"

"No," Merlin replied honestly. "Don't worry. We'll get you to Alice. Just as soon as all of this clears up."

"Is it still going on?" Arthur's eyes went wide and he started to sit up. Merlin leaned forward in order to push him down and immediately regretted it, the pain in his head creeping up steadily on him. Soon he would be able to feel all of it. "We have to go help."

"It's only been a few minutes," Merlin shook his head. "And not a chance. You'll just be easier to hurt. And I'm kind of not equipped to fight at the moment either."

"Let me." Arthur's formerly lax fingers gripped his wand tighter and lifted up his hand lightly.

"No, I don't need –"

"_Vulerna Sanetur."_

Merlin felt something cool slide against his skin, and lifting his hand up, felt that Arthur's attempt looked similar to his own. The wounds were not closed, not even close, but the blood flow had decreased considerably.

"Thanks."

"You're very difficult," Arthur informed him tartly through a grimace. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

"That's a negative, Ghost Rider."

Arthur snorted and Merlin smiled. "Liar."

They sat in silence for a moment. The Honeydukes interior was not a pleasant one; there was broken glass and boards everywhere, students' schoolbags left behind and traces of blood on the floor. The outside still sounded chaotic, incantations chanted and the yelling of scared schoolchildren who had never seen the likes of this before.

"Who do you think they are?" Merlin asked, actually somewhat curious to hear the answer.

"Taber, I'd guess," Arthur said from his unchanged position of lying on the ground. Merlin shifted so that he sit properly, back resting against the lower side of the display window, ducking slightly to make sure his head wasn't in view. "And his followers."

"Probably," Merlin agreed, and with a jolt, remembered Morgana. He swallowed bile and more blood, hoping fervently her meeting hadn't been with whoever the shadowy figures had been. Oh, God – he had been about to _attend _that meeting.

He suddenly felt very dizzy.

"Merlin? Merlin, are you alright?"

"Fine," Merlin managed to rasp out, even though he was the opposite of.

"_Mer_lin…"

"_Ar_thur…"

They didn't speak again for a few moments; Merlin measured the time through Arthur's labored breathing. It seemed, however, even with his face cut up and guilt chewing at his insides, he couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Since when do we call each other by our first names?"

"Shut up," Arthur chuckled, and his face began to relax. After a beat, he said "I can't feel the pain any more. Like, it's still there, but just…muted, somehow. It just…went away. Disappeared. How is that possible?"

Merlin's eyes flickered to his immediately. "I've hardly felt any pain at all. I don't understand it."

"Well, that explains why you said you were fine," Arthur gave him a judgmental look. "You look like death roasted over. Like you live in a bloodbath. Like hell spit you out."

"Thank you," Merlin said, closing his eyes. "So much. I'm so glad you're here with me."

"Me too," Arthur said so quietly Merlin decided he imagined it.

They existed in a kind of limbo after that, one of silence and occasional glances and a few words, of Arthur's loud breathing and Merlin's quiet inner turmoil.

He had no idea what to think of what was happening, of what others had done, of what he could have gotten himself into and what he did. He thought about Arthur, too.

While he was stewing, the yells and screams died down somewhat; a battle coming to its end. Merlin almost went outside to check and see, but didn't. Just in case. Arthur's pain was coming back; it wasn't staying comfortably numb like Merlin's. It fluctuated.

It could have been seconds later, or minutes, even hours; Merlin couldn't tell. But when silence reigned on the streets as it did in the abandoned shop, Merlin lifted his head up to peak out the window.

"Oh, God," Merlin let out a heavy breath.

"What is it?" Arthur said quietly from the ground, voice weak and strained. Despite Merlin's best efforts, he had kept losing blood steadily. It pooled around him dark and angry.

"The professors," Merlin tried hard to smile, but found his mouth was having difficulties moving. His own injuries were more affected now as well. But at the sight of Alice kneeling over an unconscious body, of Nimueh helping up an injured third-year, of Gaius and Monmouth speaking to the shop owners still conscious and breathing –

Of no shadowy figures sending hexes and curses in every which way.

Merlin's eyes searched desperately for his friends, for Gwen and Leon who should be alright, should be safe, for Elena and Percival, whose date had been ruined, for Freya and Mithian, for Morgana – _for Morgana…_

"I'm gonna go get Alice," Merlin told Arthur. "You need…you need…"

"_You _need," Arthur began, but was cut off with a smile.

It would be okay now, Merlin reassured himself as he reached out almost blindly for the door handle. It would be okay now.


	10. New York Eyes

"How many dead?"

Merlin's first question of many more to come was answered in the most surprising way possible.

"None," Gaius shook his head as he knelt over a shallowly breathing Arthur. "As of yet. We haven't scoured the entire village yet, though Professor Monmouth is searching." As he examined Arthur's injuries, he asked "What spell was used to create these?"

"I don't know," Arthur answered before Merlin could open his mouth, coughing slightly. "I didn't hear. Same one for both of us, though."

"I heard," Merlin responded. "_Sectumsempra._"

Gaius stood up straight, almost rigidly, with an expression of the utmost severity. "We need to get you to the hospital wing at once. This spell is highly dangerous and lethal. Please tell me that you attempted to heal one another."

At their nods of assent, Gaius let out a heavy puff of relief. "Thank Merlin – …well, thank someone, at the very least. Can you help Arthur up, Merlin? You may look dreadful, but I'm afraid his wounds are a bit more severe than yours."

"Told you that you looked like hell," Arthur said as Merlin rose unsteadily to his feet. He was still stable enough to lift Arthur up by the shoulders, however, slinging one of the other boy's arms around his neck. Arthur was heavier than he was, but Merlin's frame held him up without too many difficulties, even without the adrenaline that had come with their trek to Honeydukes.

"And I told you that I'm fine," Merlin made a face back, which he was sure only made his wounds look worse. Gaius only gazed at them before brusquely turning away and out of the store, calling behind him.

"There are carriages at the far end of town that are taking the wounded back to the school."

"C'mon," Merlin said quietly as Arthur sighed into his shoulder, his breath stuttering just slightly.

* * *

"How many dead?" Merlin asked the moment the carriage pulled up to the blessed sight of the castle. Agravaine was waiting near the doors, escorting a few bruised fourth years inside. He turned when he saw a bloodied up Merlin supporting a still struggling Arthur, and rushed to grab his other side. A trill of something akin to anger went through Merlin at the idea of Agravaine helping – he could do this, he'd been the one to help Arthur, to carry him, not Agravaine…

Merlin decided that he might actually have suffered a bit of brain damage from this adventure.

"How many?" He asked again, and Agravaine gave him an unreadable look.

"I haven't heard of any so far," he said. "Though if I had to hazard a guess, less than half of the students that went to Hogsmeade this morning have returned to the castle."

"Do you know – names?" Arthur asked from between them as they headed through the entrance hall. Merlin cursed himself for not asking that sooner, tingles of worry for his friends spreading throughout his body. If anything had happened to them…

"I believe Mr. Green is already in the castle," Agravaine told Arthur, who let out a heavier breath than Merlin had seen before. Relief swept through him at the news as well. "Bruises and cuts only. As for your friends, Mr. Emrys…"

Merlin's heart nearly stopped before Agravaine continued. "…I've seen both Tristan Sands and Isolde Blake already. I believe both were uninjured."

"Thank God," Merlin said faintly.

"Can you take Mr. Pendragon up the rest of the way on your own?" Agravaine asked him, and again, Merlin felt unexplained anger. "I should be waiting in the entrance hall – just in case there are any casualties."

Merlin smiled tightly, which must have looked horrendous on his marred features. He was starting to feel their pain again, and it was highly unpleasant. He swallowed some more of his own blood. "We'll be fine."

Satisfied, Agravaine nodded curtly before taking his exit. Merlin waited a moment before saying "Dick."

Arthur snorted, though it was weak enough that it worried Merlin, and, readjusting Arthur's position so that he had a firmer grip on Arthur's waist, started to pull him toward the staircases – of which there would be four before they arrived at the hospital wing. God, Hogwarts could use an elevator.

"Why is he a dick, exactly?" Arthur breathed, staggering and leaning even more heavily on Merlin. He reached his other hand out toward Arthur's abdomen, where most of the blood flow was. They were leaving quite a gruesome trail. Merlin was grateful for the talk, however; it distracted him from his throbbing head.

"He just didn't want to carry you," Merlin heaved. "Didn't want to get his cloak all dirty with your blood. Bloody pretentious, if you ask me."

"Y'know, for Slytherin, you really seem to hate Slytherins," Arthur laughed weakly as they hit the landing that led to the second staircase.

"I don't hate Slytherins," Merlin defended his House automatically. "I hate the vast majority of people. I hate members of all the Houses with equal fury."

"I'm sure you hate me more than most though, right?" Arthur said in a way that was both light and heavy, as if he wanted Merlin to say yes and no. It was confusing, was what it was.

Merlin, of course, answered the most sarcasm he could possibly bleed out. As much as was on his face, really. "You are my most hated enemy, I swear to you. When I take over the world, you will be the first to die."

"S'long as I'm special," Arthur slurred onto his neck with hints of laughter. Merlin was a bit worried that he wasn't being taken more seriously. It was like Arthur had a personality transplant from the previous year. Oh, well. He liked this Arthur better anyway.

"One more staircase to go," Merlin gasped out a few minutes later. "Can you make it?"

"I should be asking you that," Arthur blinked at him dazedly. "Hell roasted over, Merlin. Hell."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Merlin griped at him as he pulled him upwards, further and further, until they reached the Hospital Wing door.

Arthur grinned at him in a kind of half-conscious way that was very, very worrying. "Made it."

"You're very, very worrying," Merlin told him before he snaked a hand away from Arthur's side and opened the towering double doors.

The Hospital Wing was the fullest Merlin had ever seen in in his seven years at the school, filled with members from all Houses and all years except for the very youngest. Eyes flickered to the pair of them as they entered through the doors, and Merlin pretended he didn't hear the hushed whispers that broke out. None of those who he saw were recognizable; or, at least, there was no one there he cared about. He couldn't see either Tristan or Isolde, and assumed they had been sent to their dorms if they had no injuries.

"How badly are the two of you –" A high, regal, feminine voice rang out through the din and Morgause Gorlois stepped out from behind the bed of a fourth year with a cast on her arm. "Oh, my."

"Yeah," Merlin gritted his teeth slightly. A shock of mistrust went down his spine, and he wished Alice were here instead of in Hogsmeade, even though he knew that would be where she was needed most. "A little help, if you please?"

Securing herself onto Arthur's other side; they managed to lay him down in one of the final empty beds. Merlin wondered what they'd do with the other three quarters of the student population yet to arrive, but it wasn't his most present worry.

"Is he alright?" Merlin asked as Morgause began to inspect Arthur.

"Healing spell?" She ignored him, her wand drawing down each of the lacerations. Arthur nodded and Merlin made a noise that probably resembled agreement. "Rudimentary at best, but it probably saved his life."

Merlin was met with a combination of utmost relief and spikes of fear – if he hadn't been there, if he hadn't had this strange capability for spell-less magic, Arthur would be dead. He had never felt something like this before, something that tightened up his stream for air and made his head go woozy.

She pointed her wand at Arthur without making a sound, so Merlin couldn't tell which spell she used, but the effects were instantaneous. The four parallel cuts began to stitch themselves up ever so slowly, bit by bit until they were sewn up completely. Before his eyes, they seemed to go through the healing process, and when Morgause let her wand fall to her side, they appeared as nothing more than weeks-old cuts.

"He'll have scars, of course," Morgause stared down at him without concern or empathy, just detached coolness that made Merlin's skin tingle. Arthur seemed not to have heard; his eyes and gone glassy and were drooping shut, body relaxing. Morgause must have put him to sleep. "But it could have been much worse. One of the cuts was nearly on his spleen – he wouldn't have survived without bleeding out if it had gone just an inch higher."

"Christ," Merlin whispered. Morgause, seeming to remember that he existed, turned to face him with the same blank expression.

"Same spell, I assume? Sectumsempra?"

Merlin nodded, not liking the look in her eye.

She clicked her tongue. "Facial wounds are a bit tricky. I can tell that the same healing spell was used for your cuts as his. There shouldn't be any lasting effects other than a few nasty scars – unfortunately, with magic like this; we won't be able to remove them."

If Merlin had been in the right state of mind, he might have cared, but right now, his mind was half-dead and his bones felt like water. "Just make the bleeding stop."

"That I can do," she told him before saying "Lay down; the spell will make you extremely drowsy."

There was one more spare bed next to Arthur's, so Merlin made himself comfortable, or at least as much as he could manage. The last thing he saw was Morgause's wand before his eyes fell shut and he wonderfully, gloriously, stopped _feeling_.

* * *

"I'm afraid to say that you'll always have those scars – there's really nothing I can do."

There were three nasty red scratches; one across his forehead, one just beneath his eyes and across his nose and cheekbones, and one lower, on his chin and lips. Other than the minor annoyance that came with moving his mouth, Merlin could hardly tell that they were there.

Except for that there was no one in the hospital wing that would meet his eyes.

"Its fine, Alice," Merlin did his best to smile at her. It was approaching eleven in the evening; she had been in Hogsmeade with those most injured and in need of immediate care for most of the afternoon. Merlin had slept for most of that time, and wouldn't let her deal with him until she had looked the rest of the wing. Merlin didn't need any help. He was fine.

Except for those three scars.

"Are you sure I have to stay?" Merlin pestered her lightly. He hadn't the chance to see any of his friends yet; he had been asking since the moment he woke up, but the only one of them in the hospital wing was Freya, who had a rather nasty bruise on her hip and was still sleeping it off. He knew the others were safe, but he needed to see them. "The cuts won't get infected, I'll be sure to take care of them properly."

Alice winced, crinkling her eyebrows together. "I still think you should stay the night…" Merlin held his breath. "…but I suppose you can leave, if you promise me that you won't do anything reckless."

"Of course I won't," Merlin swore, making an x over his chest. "Cross my heart."

"Oh, go ahead, then," Alice made a shooing motion as she smiled. Merlin would have grinned up at her as he got to his feet, but his smile probably looked more gruesome than anything. And always would.

With one last glance toward a still-sleeping Arthur, Merlin felt a stab of regret at leaving him here alone – but he would be asleep for the night, it didn't matter if Merlin was there or not. Besides, he had to somehow get rid of these awful protective feelings he had about Arthur. Just because he saved his life a couple of times…

Merlin wasn't thinking about that as he ducked out of the room of the sleeping and unconscious. There were still no reports of deaths, and although that was amazing and wonderful and many other praise-worthy adjectives, there was a part of Merlin that didn't trust it.

It was too pure, too clean – too deliberate.

But he wasn't going to think about that too deeply yet. Right now he just wanted to find his friends.

He knew that if he went down to the Slytherin common room, finding Tristan and Isolde wouldn't be hard to locate. He and Tristan had beds right next to one another, and Isolde was never far away from him. But Merlin knew they were okay, had heard about them; besides, his friendship with them was fragile, precarious and dangling on a precipice. They weren't the lifelong type.

Gwen and Leon, however…

Merlin didn't know how to find them together; they were in different houses, and although Merlin could break into them easily enough, it probably wouldn't do the students well to see a horribly scarred Slytherin student who had been accused of dark magic on multiple occasions sneaking into the place where they slept.

That was something he generally wanted to avoid.

He made it to the ground floor without encountering another soul, which he was grateful for. But he had no idea of what Hogwarts was doing at the moment, of what he could and couldn't get away with, of how his peers would be coping…

He could hear voices.

Lots and lots of voices, echoing through the hallways. It was nearing midnight; no one would have been awake, or at least out of their common rooms, on an ordinary night. But tonight was the opposite of ordinary.

Straining his ears slightly, Merlin figured out where the source of the noise was – the Great Hall. Who was in there? It sounded like it had to be quite a few people; students or professors, friendly or hostile, he didn't know. But he decided to take a chance and follow the echoes.

He was surprised at the result.

The doors to the Great Hall were wide open, the room teaming with students and teachers alike. There were so many people milling there, talking, whispering, holding each other tightly, that Merlin figured it must be the other half of the school that wasn't occupying the hospital wing. He saw a few familiar faces immediately – Mithian, Percival, Elena – and let out a small sigh of relief.

But when they turned and saw him standing in the entryway, their reactions were not the same. They were more guarded, off-center. Merlin subconsciously went up to touch the crisscrosses on his skin. He swallowed hard and through the crowds and over to them.

"Hi," he started out a bit meekly. "I'm glad all of you are safe. Do you know where Gwen – ?"

He was interrupted by Elena reaching over and touching the exact spot his fingers had just grazed with an expression on her face that was not quite revulsion; more like morbid curiousity.

"God, what happened?" she whispered. She herself had a cut directly over her eye, but it appeared to be only a normal wound, inflicted by natural causes. Percival and Mithian both seemed to be in fine condition, other than looking haggard and worn.

"You know," Merlin shrugged, not wanting to talk about it. "Stuff. How are all of you?"

"We're alright," Mithian said, not quite meeting Merlin's eye. Due to their past relationship, his new look, or something else, he didn't know. "Is Freya alright?"

"She's fine, sleeping when I left," Merlin replied. His eyes flickered to Percival. "What about you? Hanging in there?"

"He was fantastic," Elena answered fervently for her date, and he blushed slightly at her words. Merlin immediately knew he was a keeper. "I got knocked out immediately, of course, and he got me away from all of the shadowy people. Do you have any idea who they were?"

The last part was obviously directed at him, for the three of them regarded him with identical looks. It wasn't just curiosity this time, though; there was something in them that was more…judgmental. Calculating. Again, Merlin thought of Morgana.

"I'm assuming they have something to do with Cenred Taber, but I haven't heard anything specifically," Merlin shrugged. "I'm sure Kilgharrah will make an announcement. Why are we all gathered here?"

"I don't think anyone wanted to be alone," Mithian answered, and they stood in silence for a moment before Merlin decided to ask again.

"Have you seen either Gwen or Leon? I haven't seen or heard anything about them."

"They're fine," Elena reassured him. "They were in the Three Broomsticks the whole time – apparently a good deal of third and fourth years was there at the time, and they set up a kind of defense system to protect them."

"That's good to know," the thought cheered Merlin slightly. Although it still didn't account for the lack of death. The lack of death was still very much troubling him.

"There they are!" Percival, taller than the rest of them by at least a head, and in Elena's case, quite a few heads, pointed across the crowd, just past a gaggle of Ravenclaw girls all seated together. Merlin craned his neck to see the two of them, sitting alone, heads bent toward one another. They didn't look to be intimate, which was a good thing at the moment, as far as Merlin was concerned, because all he wanted to do was talk to them.

"I'll talk to all of you later," Merlin looked at his friends with what he hoped was an earnest expression. He probably failed quite spectacularly at that, but Gwen and Leon were the important issue in his life at the current moment in time.

Shoving through the crowd, he had quite a few things he wanted to say when he reached them. However, the only thing that he could get out of his mouth once he was in front of them and their gazes were reaching upward was "Oh, thank God."

"Merlin!" Gwen jumped to her feet instantaneously, Leon less than a second behind her. She had on her motherly face as she reached forward to touch his, the same way Elena did. Merlin was prepared for it this time, however, and ducked out of the way. "Merlin, what happened?"

"Bad curse," Merlin filled in the details just a bit more this time, though his elaboration skills still left something to be desired. "What happened to the two of you? Ellie told me you were in the Three Broomsticks the whole time, protecting the third and fourth years?"

Gwen nodded, still gazing concernedly up at him with tears of pity in her eyes. Merlin couldn't take it, instead turning to Leon – who, as he found, was not much better. His look was one of a kicked puppy. He answered nonetheless.

"We had most of them holed up in the back room; all of the sixth and seventh years were on a rotating guard schedule to make sure no one got inside unless they were a student. I think we saved quite a few of them by getting them inside and to safety."

"Did you hear there were no deaths?" Merlin asked. "I don't…I don't know if I can believe that, but it's true. Isn't that strange?"

Gwen and Leon exchanged a worried look. "I didn't see anyone throwing killing curses," Gwen said slowly. "I don't think it was their intent to kill us, only hurt us and scare us."

Merlin snorted. "Well, that would make sense, except for the killing curse that was thrown at Arthur and me."

Gwen blinked confusedly up at him as Leon gave him a look that wouldn't have been out of place if Merlin just casually told them that he killed a man. "You were with Arthur?"

"Yeah," Merlin shifted uncomfortably under their gaze.

"Arthur Pendragon?"

"We were together when the crossfire started," Merlin explained, defensive. "We both got hit with a pretty bad curse that nearly killed him and left me with these lovely little consolation prizes on my face."

"It's just –" Gwen bit her lip and Leon suddenly wouldn't meet his eyes. "We thought – well, not we didn't think. We suspected – no, it's not that, either. We were worried that –"

"Look, Merlin," Leon filled in when Gwen's words faltered, his face full of nothing but concern and compassion – which worried Merlin on every possible level, heart thumping faster. If Leon wasn't treating him like he was a cockroach that lived in his closet, something was very, very wrong.

"You left the Three Broomsticks right when the attacks started. You said you were meeting someone. You had just had what looked like an intense conversation with Morgana Fay. And as there's no way to positively identify any of today's attackers what with the glamour they were wearing…"

"Oh, God," Merlin whispered, suddenly tasting blood again as Leon trailed off. "You think I had something to do with it."

"No, no," Gwen spoke up, eyes wide and frightened – of what, Merlin wasn't certain. Was it him? Oh, God. It couldn't be him, could it? "It's just…we're worried, Merlin. We know you would never do something like that, but we just –"

"We couldn't ignore the facts," Leon shook his head apologetically. "I'm sorry, mate. But we do have to ask. Did you – did you have any idea what was going to happen?"

Merlin thought. Merlin thought about how he knew there was something off about Morgana, about her continued offers to him about meeting a friend, and about how he had almost gone to her in one moment of stupidity.

There was no more blood in his mouth, but he swallowed some anyway.

"No," he said hoarsely, not entirely sure if it was a lie or not. "No. I – No. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go now. I'm glad you're both safe, but I just – I have to go. I'm sorry."

He heard something akin to protests, but his ears just wouldn't focus in on the sound. His eyes, too, blurred with anger and fear and betrayal. That had hurt far more than any lasting impression in his skin.

Merlin didn't realize he was walking back up the four staircases to the hospital wing until he was standing just outside the door. He didn't know what exactly had led him back here – but then again, yes. He did.

"Merlin, what are you doing back here?" Alice had been bending over the bed of a fifth year student to change the dressings on their arm until she noticed him. She then stood up straight, confused and head tilted. "Do you need anything? Did any of the pain come back?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Merlin reassured her faintly. "I'm fine, Alice. Really, I am. I just –"

His eyes hit the bed where Arthur lay, still sleeping deeply, light snores issuing from his mouth. They seemed less filtered than before, and far healthier. Without waiting for Alice's response, Merlin stepped around a few of the other beds to pull out the single chair that sat at the side of Arthur's, as was mirrored by the rest of the room's, and took a seat.

He didn't look at Alice, but knew she was looking right him. He heard her sigh a little fondly before saying "I'll be up most of the night. Let me know if you need anything."

Merlin gazed down at Arthur's unconscious form before putting his head in his hands, letting his fingers knead through his hair as he let out a choked sigh.

At least there was one person who knew he hadn't been an attacker. Even if it was the last person Merlin had ever expected to know what he truly was, there was still one.


	11. Chicago Thighs

Merlin woke up to the sound of someone snapping their fingers.

"Hey. Hey, Merlin. Wake up. That position does not look comfortable. Merlin. _Meeer_lin."

In a semi-dazed state, Merlin blinked blearily, eyes focusing only after a few pathetic attempts. A face appeared in front of his own, blurry at first but soon recognizable.

"Arthur," Merlin acknowledged with a slight groan, lifting himself up out of his slumped position in the chair. Arthur had been right, it wasn't comfortable at all, and he had to crack his back and neck a couple of times in order to feel like he hadn't been run over by a train.

"There are plenty of beds in here, Merlin," Arthur winced at the cracking sound. "I'm sure no one would have objected to you, you know, sleeping in one. While we're on the subject, _why _exactly are you sleeping in the chair next to my bed?"

"Seemed like the thing to do," Merlin answered automatically. It was kind of the truth, really, but he wasn't going to bring up last night – God, last night. Memories of Leon and his concernedly wrinkled face and Gwen and her wide eyes were suddenly everywhere. A horrible sinking feeling went through his body that he tried to shake off immediately. "Saved your life and all, had to make sure no one killed you in your sleep."

"Fell asleep on the job, I see," Arthur eyed him critically, although there was laugh in his voice. He looked better, so much better than Merlin could nearly forget about his friends' betrayal. He had no shirt on, but his chest and sides were covered in bandages. It looked like it was still painful, for Arthur was leaning back against the headboard and hardly moving anything below his neck.

"Yeah, well, nobody's perfect." It was far too early for banter – the hospital wing around them was bustling, though, filled to the top with students, professors everywhere, chatter abounding. It was a minor miracle Merlin had slept through all of it until this point. He immediately sought out Freya on one of the beds across the way – still asleep. He let out a sigh of relief that another one of his friends couldn't judge him quite yet.

Arthur blinked at him a few times, tilting his head. His behavior toward Merlin was so different that he couldn't help but feel a bit self-conscious about it. "How are you feeling?"

"I could ask you the same question," Merlin asked, glad that Arthur had brought up the subject first. "How are your wounds healing? Do you need anything from Alice?"

"She just changed my bandages an hour ago," Arthur said and Merlin smiled. "But you – your face…is there anything…"

His smile slid off. "No. Apparently with this curse, the scars stay put. Soon we'll match."

Merlin almost expected some pitying statement, but Arthur blew that thought away instantly with a self-deprecating snort. "We can call them battle wounds if anyone asks."

"We're very brave," Merlin hummed, grin returning somewhat. "Fierce warriors."

"Well, _I_ am," Arthur proclaimed a bit haughtily. "I don't know about you."

"Excuse me, who was it that saved who?"

"It was a team effort."

"Oh, a _team effort_, obviously – Is that what you'll tell all your little Gryffindor friends so they'll fawn over you even more?"

Arthur's face turned somber, causing Merlin a jolt of panic. He'd been teasing; they were in a teasing place now, he was certain, one that was well on its way to bantering. Last year, it would have gotten him pinned up against the corridor wall, or possibly hexed, but it was okay now – wasn't it?

Thankfully, Arthur spoke and ended Merlin's worry. "Of course not. You saved my life, Merlin."

An unexpected warmth spread in Merlin's chest. Arthur immediately followed it up with a snarky "They wouldn't fawn over me if I had saved you. I would have been called out for betraying House values and protecting the future dark lord."

Merlin swallowed, throat suddenly constricting at the seemingly harmless words, words he could have laughed off yesterday – but not now. Not now.

"…What is it?" Arthur's voice was soft, but it hadn't lost its grating edge. Merlin knew that he couldn't be blamed for not being aware of what had happened, but it still made his eyes hit the ground, refusing to go back up to the other boy's.

"Nothing," was his only answer, and although he tried his hardest to make his voice cheerful and light, he knew the somber gravity of it had filtered in. He dared to look up – Arthur was frowning at him, concern evident in his face. The lines in his head looked too much like Leon's, though, and Merlin had to turn away.

"Honestly, Merlin, what is it? I know I'm not…not exactly your closest confidante, but I'd like to think that…well, after yesterday, I'd like to think that we're friends."

"I…thank you," Merlin spoke, half-strangled in his words, and he had the impression that this wasn't a conversation that should be happening in a busy hospital wing where he could just barely hear a neighboring conversation about blood loss. "I'd like to think that, too. But – really, Arthur, I'm fine."

"Merlin –" Arthur went from soft and quiet to almost patronizing and Merlin gritted his teeth, still determinedly looking down at his shoes. They were black and the laces were frayed. He focused on that as he spit out his next words with more venom then necessary.

"_I'm fine_."

"Well." The voice above him became hard and heavy, and Merlin dared to look back up. Arthur's eyes were guarded in a way that they hadn't been before and his hands were clutched into fists. Of course. Merlin managed to make the only person who knew of his innocence pissed off at him. Fantastic. "That's nice and civil. Don't you trust me?"

"No, quite frankly, I don't," Merlin bit before he could stop himself, and a trickle of regret went through him at the sting that hit Arthur's eyes. It wasn't enough to get him to quit talking, however. "You verbally and sometimes physically abused me for four years for no viable reason, which, by the way, made my life a living _hell_. And maybe you're starting to see the better side of me, but I still haven't seen yours. How have you shown to me that you've become a better person? Other than seeing me for what I actually am instead of your twisted fantasy? You think that's enough to make me like you? I saved you, Arthur; not the other way around."

There was nothing but silence between them as Arthur stared at him, expressionless. Self-loathing burned through Merlin's stomach, but he ignored it, hands shaking.

"Tell me what you really think," Arthur managed; quiet yet fierce, but wide eyes gave him away. Merlin's words had hurt.

"I – I'm sorry," Merlin whispered, tearing his eyes away. Not being able to look anymore. That hadn't been necessary. Arthur had been the last – it wasn't – _Shit_. "I have to – I have to go. I'm sorry."

His muscles were stiff when he rose from his chair, but he still moved faster than he could remember moving before, avoiding Arthur's gaze at all cost as he pushed through the milling students there to visit their wounded friends. Swallowing bile, or possibly more blood, with something akin to tears stinging his eyes, all he wanted to do was disappear.

* * *

"Merlin, where have you been?"

Isolde greeted him instantly upon his entrance into the Slytherin common room, appearing almost out of the air itself, Tristan an inch behind her. Both of them seemed relieved to see him, though there was something that reminded him of judgment filling their eyes.

"Hospital Wing," Merlin said, deciding to avoid the subject of Arthur entirely, both for their sake and his own. His stomach bubbled unpleasantly at the memory. God, why did he _say _that? It wasn't that it wasn't true, but Merlin didn't _tell_ the truth. He lied and bullshitted and no one ever knew what he actually felt.

But Arthur hadn't deserved to know that truth, not really. He was better. He wasn't the same person anymore. But he had been that person _once._

….Merlin was going to stop thinking now.

"Are the two of you alright? I heard you were uninjured –"

"We're fine," Tristan reassured him with a pat on the back. The hole that let the Slytherins into their common room slid open behind Merlin, and he stepped out of its way, guiding his friends with him. The room wasn't as busy as it usually was, with many of its patrons back in the place Merlin had left from. Still, there were a few students standing about, and it may have just been his overactive imagination, but each and every one of them had given him a strange, unreadable look.

"What about you?" Isolde asked, squinting up at him. "Your scars…"

More self-hatred filled Merlin's bloodstream as he unconsciously lifted a hand to touch the lowest of the slash marks. He had nearly forgotten about those. "Yeah. Those won't be healing anytime soon. Or ever. One of the two."

"They'll never –"

"Dark Magic is very bad for your health," Merlin faked a smile for just a moment before he couldn't do it anymore and it faded back into a frown. "Do…Do either of you know who…"

"Taber, obviously," Isolde picked up on the question he was trying to ask with a dismissive brush of her hand. "Honestly, it's none of our concern."

A part of Merlin snapped at the words, and his head jerked so quickly that it cracked once more. "What do you mean _none of our concern_?"

Isolde raised a skeptical eyebrow at his apparent anger, Tristan mirroring her. God, they were practically the same person. It made Merlin's blood boil.

"I just mean that we're not Muggleborns, so he can't affect us negatively," she pointed out as if it was the most logical train of thought. "And we don't want to join his cause like most of this House seems to. So why should we worry about it?"

Merlin stared at her, incredulous.

How could someone that was so smart be so ignorant?

"They just _attacked_ our _school_," Merlin stated. "It's a miracle that no one is _dead_. I have scars, and I'm not the only one. Hogsmeade is in a state of semi-ruin. I have friends that are still up under Alice's care."

"Relax, I heard Gwen and Leon were fine," Tristan brushed off the comment with a wave his hand. Merlin bit down on his tongue to keep from screaming.

"Is there someone else who's up there?" Isolde asked; it wasn't accusatory, but…yes, yes it was. Somewhat, somehow. Or maybe Merlin was just paranoid.

"Freya," he answered, leaving Arthur out of it. "Freya's there."

"Is it serious?" Tristan asked, concern somewhere in his voice. He didn't know Freya well, so it was nice to hear that. Usually, with Tristan and Isolde, they didn't care about anyone who wasn't each other.

"No, no, she'll be fine," Merlin sighed, closing his eyes and rocking back on his heels. "I'm sorry, both of you, it's just not been easy for me –"

He cut himself off as his eyes opened once more and their focus immediately went to a figure that stepped out from the girl's dormitory. A figure with long raven hair, pale skin, and a slight frame.

Shit.

"Will you two excuse me for a moment?" Merlin's eyes followed Morgana as she strode through the room, across his line of sight, to one of the spidery chairs on the room's far left, a book in her black-painted fingers.

Not waiting for a reaction, he sidestepped the pair of them and, not hesitating in the slightest, made his way the few feet that lay between him and the Slytherin girl that made his head pound with what she did, what she almost made _him _do.

Probably.

That wasn't confirmed.

But it would be soon.

"Morgana," Merlin greeted her cordially, dropping into the seat on her right. She had opened her book, but she lowered it at his acknowledgement, eyes demure and lips pursed.

"Merlin," she said, voice not letting any information loose. There was nothing that suggested guilt there, nor innocence. It was just a voice.

Merlin questioned how he should broach the subject and decided that it was best to ease his way into such a sensitive idea. "How are you? Injured at all?"

"Just some cuts and scrapes," she shrugged her shoulders elegantly. "I see you suffered a bit more of a blow."

Merlin touched the cuts again. He had to stop doing that every time they were pointed out. "Yeah. I didn't have a great time of things."

Morgana shook her head. "Pity."

"How so?"

"Cuts like that won't heal."

"I'm aware."

They sat in quiet for a moment, Morgana's eyes cold and calculating, head tilted to the side. He shifted under her dark gaze.

"What was the meeting you invited me to, Morgana?" Merlin quit beating around the bush, regarding her with a firm voice and a raised, accusing eyebrow.

Morgana didn't answer, but she didn't look away either – so Merlin kept talking. "See, I think I know what it was – and who was there. Or, at least, who's name it was in."

"You have a lot of ideas in that head of yours," Morgana's voice was level and calm, but Merlin could hear the ferocity it hid, and it sent a chill down his spine. "They might get you into trouble one day."

"I think they already have," Merlin tilted his head right back, trying his hardest to seem intimidating, not to be messed with. He wasn't sure if it was working, if his scars were a help or a hindrance. _Battle wounds._ He shook off the thought immediately. "They might get you into trouble as well."

"You see, I don't think so," Morgana stopped her perfected neutrality to smile, just slightly. "You've forgotten which one of us has already been associated with the Dark Arts."

Merlin's skin went cold. "Are you saying –?"

"Which one of us would be believed – by the professors or the student body?" Her smile turned saccharinely sweet, a direct contrast to her words. "Don't accuse me of something you can't back up, Emrys. I'm willing to bet you never told any of your little friends about our discussions. In fact, as far as I know, _they _have become suspicious of your activities."

Cold went to heat as anger filled Merlin's veins. He smiled despite it, however. He couldn't give this girl, this smiling, arrogant, _victorious_ girl the satisfaction. "Well played, Fay."

"I thought so." She stood up swiftly, turning around to look down at him with something akin to pity in her eyes. "Still, my invitation stands. You're always welcome to come and play for our team, Emrys. Just let me know when and where."

"I'll keep it in mind," Merlin said. _No, I won't._

She smirked, almost amused, as she walked away, toward the fireplace, where a couple of other girls in their year sat. Girls that had probably joined her in the shadowy army from the day previous. Merlin let his anger thunder through his veins as he regained control of his breathing.

"What the _hell_ was that about?"

Tristan and Isolde, apparently, had been waiting for the conversation to finish, as they appeared within the seconds that Morgana was gone. Merlin knew that the two of them had been speaking too quietly to be overheard, but that didn't stop his skin from breaking out in goose bumps.

"I was just threatened," Merlin said mildly. "In the most polite, cordial way possible."

"Why was Morgana Fay threatening you?" Tristan blinked at him, confused.

Merlin forced a smile. "A story for another day."


	12. Window

"I'm not sorry for what I said, but I feel bad about how I said it."

"What?"

Merlin had been brooding all day. He had been sitting in his bed, under his covers, refusing to think about the world and the people in it, especially Arthur Pendragon.

That plan had, of course, failed miserably – For two hours later, he found himself in the Hospital Wing once more, staring down at a still heavily bandaged and altogether confused Arthur.

"Look, you deserved to hear what I said earlier," Merlin said, sitting down so as to avoid the eyes of the rest of the Wing – most of them ignored him at the moment, thankfully. "I'm just don't like that I said it like that. You were just injured, and you were being nice to me, and most people aren't being that currently – But you did bully me. For a long time. So I'm not sorry for telling you that, but I am sorry for telling you that in that way. Do you understand what I'm talking about?"

"I think so," Arthur squinted over at him with a kind of incredulous look in his eyes. "You're saying…"

Merlin sighed deeply as Arthur trailed off. He wasn't very good at being coherent. "I'm saying that everything I said was true. I don't trust you, and I don't know if I ever will. But I'm grateful that you're not treating me badly anymore, and I'm glad you're not hurt, and I wish I had said that to you when we were…you know, not in the Hospital Wing."

"So you're not apologizing, you're just..." Arthur blinked.

Merlin wished he had stayed in his bed. "I'm stating facts. You treated me badly and you deserved to know it. But I wish I had told you differently. Okay? Does that make sense?"

Arthur looked down slightly, huffing out a breath. "Yeah, yeah it does. And you're right. I did kind of deserve that."

"Good, glad we're on the same page," Merlin rubbed his hands together, a nervous tick. "I've been trying not to think about it. You can see how well that worked out."

Arthur let out a short laugh, looking down at his bed covers. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it, thinking better. Merlin somewhat wished he knew what the words were going to be.

Merlin filled in their quiet when it became apparent Arthur wasn't going to. "I hope that we can be friends someday. But I can't just forget everything that happened."

Arthur smiled, and although it was small, it was genuine. "I know. I get that. If I was in your place, I'd probably be a lot meaner about it, too, so I guess that makes you a better person than me."

"That was already established," Merlin said with a snort. He let a beat pass before asking the question he'd always been dying to know the answer to. "Why? Why did you treat me so badly for so long?"

Arthur's eyes, which had previously been on his, suddenly hit the floor. Merlin recognized the diversion tactic well, he used it often enough. It immediately made his guard go up, and a memory flashed of dropping Arthur off, drunk, at the Gryffindor common room, when he had talked about some mysterious 'him.'

"Don't you think I deserve to know?" Merlin couldn't help but press. "C'mon, Arthur – if you actually want us to be friends, if you want me to trust you, this is kind of the first step."

"I – I can't," Arthur shook his head and his voice at the same time. Merlin's curiosity grew. "I'm sorry – But I can't tell you that."

"God, it's not like some big secret," Merlin rolled his eyes, although there were feelings in his gut that told him to shut up. "Do you think I'll think badly of you or something? Because let me tell you something, mate – It's pretty impossible for me to think worse of you than what I did about midway through fourth year."

"Look, I just – I went through something bad, and I took it out on you, alright?" Arthur's voice, brazen, but quieter than Merlin had ever heard it, was firm in the way his eyes, voice, and body were not. "That's all there is to it."

"No, it's not," Merlin shook his head. "That's what I did this morning to you. Something bad happened to me and you were the nearest available target – Otherwise I would have saved my commentary for when you weren't bandaged up in a bed. Something like that doesn't create a four-year long animosity."

"Don't push it, Merlin," Arthur closed his eyes, teeth grinding so loudly it reached Merlin's ears. "I just – I treated you badly, and it wasn't right of me, but telling you this? You said you don't trust me; that makes it hard for me to trust you."

Merlin knew that this was only going to make him angrier, he knew it from the moment he decided to come back up here, but he did it anyway. Of course, he did it anyway.

"Well, then, it makes it hard for me to be your friend, no matter who saved who's life," Merlin rose to his feet, blood pounding, and ready to stalk out of the Hospital and go brood for another couple hours, but a noise from Arthur made him stop.

"Look, I'll tell you, alright?"

Merlin turned back, an incredulous chuckle making out of the back of his throat as he widened his eyes. "Really?"

"Just – not here, not now," Arthur's face was downcast, fists clenched, determinedly not meeting Merlin's eyes. "I owe you, don't I? You saved my life – you deserve answers. That's how it works, right?"

"Christ," Merlin muttered to himself, scuffing his shoes on the ground. He walked back around the bed so as not to interrupt the flow of the busy room, wondering how exactly Arthur's brain worked. He didn't comprehend the strange, convoluted patterns. "Okay. So you'll tell me sometime. When?"

"Just – when I'm out of here, when we're back to normal," Arthur said, and it sounded almost sincere, though there was great trepidation in his tone. "I'll tell you everything, alright? I just – I just don't want you to hate me anymore."

"I don't hate you," Merlin said softly, and Arthur gave him the strangest, most unreadable look. "I used to – but not now. Just promise you'll tell me what I did to deserve _your _hatred."

"Okay," Arthur nodded as if it was the hardest thing he had ever done. "Maybe if we schedule a different time for tutoring – I don't think today is going to work out."

Merlin huffed out a laugh at the comment; it was a kind of jolt back into what had previously been reality. "Oh, God. That was today, wasn't it?"

"That's so weird," Arthur shook his head; he was comfortable now, Merlin could tell, in these words, this harmless talk, for he immediately seemed lighter. "Really puts things into perspective, doesn't it?"

Merlin smiled, and remembered that he still had another problem where he needed to clear the air.

* * *

It wasn't overly difficult to find Gwen and Leon; he knew they wouldn't want to be without the other, not in a situation like this, so that ruled out both of their common rooms. Once he checked the Great Hall, which had cleared out overnight, he immediately suspected the place where they might be.

The three of them had always shared the same hiding place, after all.

"I'm not going to apologize to you, either."

"Oh, God, Merlin."

Gwen jumped up the moment Merlin appeared from behind the stacks of books that separated the aisles from one of the corners students typically used for studying. Leon remained seated at the table where he and Gwen had previously had their heads bent together in quiet discussion, though his eyes were bright and earnest on Merlin's own.

"I'm so glad you found us, we've been worried sick," Gwen said fretfully, leaning forward to brush back a strand of Merlin's hair. She didn't touch his scars this time, for which he was grateful. "You aren't – you aren't angry anymore?"

"I was never angry," Merlin shook his head as he led her back to the table to sit down. There was no one else in the library, so he had no fear of being overheard; all of the teachers were helping out with the wounded, and no other student would be up here at a time like this, unless they were searching for a place to be alone. "I was just upset. Like I said, I'm not apologizing, because I don't have anything to be sorry for, other than the fact that I left and didn't talk to you about it."

"You're damn right," Leon spoke, voice cracking slightly as he shook his head. He winced at the sound, but Merlin smiled at the genuine affection that lay under it. "We're your friends, Merlin; we didn't _like _asking you if…well, you know. But we felt like we had to."

"I know," Merlin sighed deeply, running a hand through his hair. "You were just being good friends. I just wish you hadn't been good friends right away. And so abruptly. Without warning."

Gwen winced. "We're so sorry, Merlin. We didn't mean to hurt you."

"Of course you didn't," Merlin reassured her, although it wasn't for his sake. There were still stings of bitterness toward his two best friends all throughout his mind and body, but he was willing to ignore them. "I just – It wasn't what I wanted to hear."

"We probably should have said it another time," Leon nodded, acknowledging the fault. "Not right after it happened. That wasn't a good move on our part. But we just – we're concerned, Merlin."

"I know you want to ask again," Merlin said with a small, self-deprecating smile, recognizing the unsaid prod in Leon's words. "Go ahead. I don't mind."

Merlin closed his eyes, preparing for impact.

"….No," Leon shook his head after waiting a beat. Merlin turned to him, surprised and confused, with something warm spreading throughout his body. "I don't need to ask. I already know that you would never be capable of being a part of such an atrocity."

Gwen nodded ferociously as she followed up almost immediately after Leon's mouth shut. "We should have never thought the worst of you, Merlin. I know you better than nearly anyone in the world; you couldn't do something like that. Not ever. We should have had faith in you."

"That…" Merlin shook his head and wondered how in the world he was so lucky to have made friends like this. "That means more to me than I could tell you. Thank you."

Their apologies were so sincere, their apologies so genuine, that Merlin couldn't help but have the truth spill out of his mouth, despite all of his instincts telling him that this was where the story should end. He needed to tell them; they deserved to hear it.

"Morgana Fay did ask me," Merlin said regretfully, closing his eyes tightly so as to not see their faces. "Not explicitly and in so many words, but she asked me if I was interested. I turned her down not really knowing what exactly I was saying no to, but I had my suspicions that nothing good could result from it. I should have…I should have told someone, but there was no time."

He almost told them that when he had left them in the Three Broomsticks, part of him had wanted to go and find her, but the rest of him screamed that this was enough. That they didn't need to know the rest.

"Morgana Fay?" Gwen said softly after a beat. "…I can see her being a part of it. She's good at manipulating people, getting them to do what she wants them to."

"Can we turn her in somehow?" Leon continued for her. "Report her to a professor?"

"Not exactly," Merlin said, swallowing, eyes remaining steadfastly shut. "She's threatened to report _me _if I dare to accuse her of anything."

"_What_?" Gwen's normally peace-filled, serene voice was suddenly sharp and violent, and the jolting change caused Merlin's eyes to open and regard her own fire-filled ones. "She can't do that! That's –"

"Excruciatingly clever," Leon pondered for a moment, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a similar, but quieter rage. "She knows that you've already been entangled with Taber just by rumors that float about the school, and that she'd have others that would be willing to back her up – not only her comrades, but those in other Houses with purer motives as well. You're associated with him; she's not. She had more credibility."

"Therein lays the problem," Merlin, despite the gravity of the situation, found himself smiling at his friends' anger on his behalf. He had only gone a day without them, and it was a day longer than he ever wanted to suffer through again. "I don't envy myself right now."

"How could she do something like that?" Gwen asked with wide eyes as she shook her head in disbelief. "Turn against her own school, her own peers?"

"Very easily, as far as I'm concerned," Merlin laughed humorlessly. "She's very good at it, at the very least. She scares the shit out of me."

"Out of all of us," Leon agreed with a nod and a heavy sigh. "God, Merlin, I'm sorry."

"That means a lot, coming from you," Merlin figured it was safe to return to teasing mode, now that his friends were back on his side again. Not that they had ever left in the first place, but Christ, did it feel like it. "The one who has many doubts about my character."

"I have no doubts about your character," Leon snorted, and Merlin could tell that he was reverting back to light banter, too, for which he was endlessly grateful. This was familiar territory. "Your character is an asshole."

"You two are so stupid," Gwen shook her head, but the brown in her eyes was bright, as if there were tears threatening to spill, and when she leaned over to pull Merlin into a tight and life-squeezing hug, Merlin buried his face in her shoulder. Leon reached across and put a hand on his shoulder.

This was more than familiar; this was home. And no one, not Morgana Fay, and not Arthur Pendragon, and definitely not Cenred Taber could take that away from him.


	13. Off

The next week's classes were all cancelled.

Kilgharrah said in his announcement at dinner Sunday evening that it was to give the students to time "recover from the trauma", but Merlin had a sneaking suspicion that there was more than just the distressed student body at play.

Thinking of Morgana, he was sure of it.

There could also be the pressing issue of the parents of the students, overprotective and shrill. Over the coming week, there were always at least half a dozen at the castle gates, demanding to speak to Professor Kilgharrah.

Merlin was very glad his mother was Muggle and had no idea about what was happening at the school.

He wrote to her anyway, just in case she heard it from one of her magically inclined friends, to assure her he was safe.

He'd let her find out about the scars another time.

Due to the lack of classes, Merlin had hardly seen Arthur. He knew that the other boy was released from the hospital wing on Wednesday of their week off, but he hadn't gone and seen him again. Not even in the hallways – their contacted was nonexistent.

Merlin was almost certain Arthur was avoiding him. It made his stomach bubble unpleasantly, but he wasn't altogether unsurprised.

He deserved the truth, though.

In more ways than one.

"No deaths," Merlin shook his head. "No deaths at all. I can't get over that."

"Can't you just be grateful like everyone else?" Leon sighed at him as he cracked his neck, sitting up straighter in one of the courtyard's many chairs. The two of them sat together in a small alcove, Merlin lying lackadaisically on the bricks that overlooked the grounds. It had been a week since the attack, and the more Merlin thought about it, the more agitated he became.

"I am grateful, don't get me wrong," Merlin said. "But I heard the killing curse myself. There were thirteen year olds that had no idea how to defend themselves out there. Statistically, there should have been at least _one _death. But there wasn't."

"It is odd," Leon frowned at him, puzzlement on his features. "But I just assumed it wasn't meant to be a fatal attack. I never heard the killing curse once. And everyone else I've talked to about it hasn't mentioned any spells being cast along the lines of Unforgivables."

"Really?" Merlin squinted, turning his head to look his friend in the eye. "Because I know for a fact that there was a killing curse headed for Arthur and me."

Leon furrowed his brow. "Hmmm. Well, was there anything – off about the person? Strange, I mean?"

Closing his eyes, Merlin tried to bury himself in the memory. It had all happened so quickly, in a rush of adrenaline, that all he could conjure up was the panicked look on Arthur's face. Reaching further, though, he recalled how the figure had bolted after casting the curse, how there had been a falter in their voice, something about them that Merlin could only called nervous, or scared…

"They weren't meant to cast it," Merlin said suddenly, slowly bringing himself into a sitting position. "They were – I think they were just a kid who went against orders. They – they were young, and reckless and stupid. _Shit."_

"We knew Morgana was there, but other students…" Leon shook his head, incredulity on his features.

Merlin whispered, words strangled and insides frothing, as an idea took a hold of his mind, an idea that made his stomach twist. "But I just – I – I know –"

"Hey, guys."

Merlin whirled around so quickly he could hear a few definitive pops in his neck. The adrenaline built up in his system died down as he took in the sight of Gwen standing at the alcove's entrance, smiling warmly over at them.

Next to her was her brother, Elyan, scowling, hands clasped, and definitely too Gryffindor for this gathering. Merlin's guard went up immediately.

"Gwen – hi – Merlin was just telling me –" Leon's eyes went wide, shifting back and forth as he stumbled over his words. Grateful he wasn't blurting anything out in front of people that Merlin knew for a fact did not like him in the slightest, Merlin covered for his smoothly.

"Telling him that I was wondering where you were," Merlin grinned up at her guilelessly with all the innocence in the world. It was talent he had perfected before his eleventh birthday, one that never stopped coming in handy. "I see you brought a guest."

"You both know my brother," Gwen gestured back at Elyan, who raised a hand and grunted by way of greeting. Merlin waved cheekily in response. Gwen loved her brother deeply, and thought he was a lovely person, and Leon got along with him decently, but Merlin's position as enemy number one was still very intact.

"Hi, Elyan, how have you been?" Leon stood up in order to shake the shorter boy's hand.

"Fine," he responded, ever monosyllabic as he took Leon's outstretched hand. "And yourself?"

"As well as can be expected," Leon the friendly diplomat smiled. "Gwen said you broke an arm during the attack…?"

Elyan looked relieved that Leon had brought up a topic. Merlin, swinging his legs, around the stone wall that he had been using as a bed, wondered exactly why he was here, being clearly uncomfortable with the situation.

"It wasn't serious," he explained. "I was with Lancelot during the fight, and he's already taken the mock exams necessary to become a Healer. He fixed me up within a few seconds."

"I'm sure Gwen told you that the two of us were in the Three Broomsticks," Leon explained. Elyan nodded and Gwen looked up at him thankfully for the continuous conversation.

Conversation with Gryffindors was hard. Merlin had no idea how Leon was managing it.

"Thank you for taking care of her," Elyan said, voice intent and softer than Merlin had ever heard it. Gwen swatted his arm with a roll of her eyes.

"I didn't need taking care of, thank you very much," she snorted derisively, but it wasn't without affection. Leon just smiled at her.

"I hear my mate, Arthur, did," Elyan looked around Leon to lock his eyes with Merlin. Brown and serious, Merlin couldn't help but feel scrutinized under their intensity. "He's singing your praises, practically. If I'm being entirely honest, he has been for a while."

"Uh, thanks," Merlin tore his eyes away to stare at his shoes. Conversation with Gryffindors was one thing; _praise _from them was entirely unheard of. "Is he doing alright?"

Elyan shrugged. "He's supposed to be on bed rest until tomorrow. Naturally, he isn't listening. Lancelot's on guard duty. Or, as Gwaine likes to call it, babysitting duty."

Merlin laughed quietly. "Good luck."

"We'll need it," Elyan very nearly smiled. "You should talk to him."

Merlin blinked, confused – he must have heard that wrong. He met Elyan's eyes again, but they seemed entirely serious. "Erm – what?"

"All he's done the past week is talk about you," Elyan rolled his eyes as Merlin stared uncomprehendingly. "Quite annoying actually. And he's really nervous about something having to do with you? I don't know. I think he and Lancelot are having a heart to heart, because he told Gwaine and me to get the hell out."

"What – why would –" Merlin's thoughts tangled around one another. Leon gave him a concerned look as Gwen titled her head at him. He hadn't told either of them the gory details about his and Arthur's experience and the confrontation that had followed, mainly because he barely understood it himself. But if Arthur was really this worried about telling Merlin exactly why he had bullied him…

It must be something either extremely horrible or extremely stupid.

Merlin wasn't sure which one he preferred.

"Just talk to him sometime, okay? Put him out of his stewing misery."

"He's been the one avoiding me –" Merlin began, and then cut himself short. "Bed rest. Babysitting. Right. Well, tell him to find me when he can walk again."

Gwen gave him a pointed look for his suddenly rude and sharp speech, but Merlin didn't want Arthur to think that he was backing off on this subject on any level. His curiosity was only growing with every passing day, with every new thing he learned about the previously one-dimensional Gryffindor Chaser.

Elyan gave a long, curious look not unlike a judgment. It seemed as if he reached his conclusion about Merlin, however, for he turned back to Gwen a moment later.

"I've got to go find Gwaine and make sure he hasn't raided the kitchens for pastries and butterbeer. I'll talk to you later."

Kissing her on the cheek, he departed the alcove, heading back toward the doors into the school's corridors.

"What was that about?" Merlin asked, shaking his head at Gwen in confusion. "Were the two of you walking together and he just happened to be here? Did that conversation have an actual purpose?"

"Never mind that," Leon interrupted uncharacteristically. "What were you saying earlier? Do you know who threw a killing curse at you?"

Merlin thought.

Half a second later, he smiled self-deprecatingly.

"No," he shook his head. "I suspect a student, a young one…I thought I was on to something, but…Really, it's just Morgana. It all boils down to her."

"What are you talking about?" Gwen glanced between the pair of them as she took the other alcove's chair, dragging it over to sit next to Leon to share his concerned gaze.

"We think it was a kid that threw a killing curse at Merlin," Leon said; her eyes widened fractionally and her mouth began to open. "A student who disobeyed orders."

"Otherwise, how could there be no deaths?" Merlin sighed deeply, bringing his head down on his hands to rub his temples. "I just – I wish there was some way to find out."

"Well…isn't there?" Gwen hesitated a moment before she started into a rambling spiel. Merlin leaned forward to hear her. "I mean, you're already expected to be the ringleader of whatever up and coming dark wizards are here at school. You could – I mean, information…It wouldn't be hard for you to get. Just put on your menacing face and pretend you're their friend. They'd tell you anything."

"I – That would –" Merlin would have never even considered that, the fact that he had some kind of power over the rest of the student body other than making them hate him. "It's – The ones that were a part of the attack would know, though, know I wasn't a part of it."

"Not if you played it right," Leon said slowly and Merlin's stomach dropped even further. He didn't want to do this, to slander his reputation even further, this time through his own fault. "You can pull it off, Merlin. You might be the only one who can. And not just because you're known for this, but because you're….well, you're the best liar I've ever met."

Leon said it like a compliment, but there was something burning in Merlin's chest. That wasn't what he wanted to be known as. Smart, sarcastic, kind –

But it was a talent, wasn't it? Just like his guileless grin, manipulation was a talent.

One that he possessed in boatloads.

"I'll think about it," Merlin breathed, closing his eyes. "I'll think about it."

* * *

"Ready to go back to classes tomorrow?" Tristan asked at dinner that night as Merlin shoved potatoes into his mouth at top speed. He swallowed quickly in order to answer, but Isolde beat him to the punch.

"Never," she scoffed, shaking back her blonde hair, out of its trademark braid for once. "You think if we complained to the headmaster of our deep suffering and wounded hearts that he'd cancel classes for another week?"

"Don't joke," Merlin reminded without any real venom in his tone. It didn't stop his skin from prickling at the insensitivity of it, however.

"Oh, honestly, you're such a killjoy," Isolde laughed as she reached a hand toward Merlin – but she thought better of it and let it somewhat awkwardly fall back against the table. Another friendly reminder of the crisscrosses that lined Merlin's face.

He took a very long drink from his goblet.

"So have they officially named any attackers from the battle yet?" Tristan said conversationally as he began eating with much more grace and pristineness than Merlin was willing make the effort toward. "I know everyone's wondering."

"Not yet, as far as I've heard," Isolde responded. "Merlin?"

"Haven't heard anything officially," Merlin said, eyes scanning the Slytherin table to find one particular student.

Mordred sat at the far end of the table, devoid of other students; his only company was a single, sparsely filled plate that he seemed to be slowly picking away at.

Merlin narrowed his eyes as he remembered the figure in black the day of the battle – voice a bit higher then, a result of bundled nerves most likely, and a bit taller hidden behind his glamour, with confidence added to his now stooped form – but Merlin knew, he could tell.

"I have my suspicions."

If was going to make it through, he had to keep some of his cards close to his chest.


	14. Remember

Classes resumed the following Monday, October trickling to its end. Merlin wasn't exactly thrilled to resume his rigorous schedule and constant homework, but he put up with it with all the grace he could muster.

It wasn't much, but there was a tiny, tiny part of him that cared.

Tiny.

On his way to Alchemy that afternoon, adrenaline buzzed in Merlin's system. The thought of having a conversation with Arthur was part relief, part terror. He didn't want to hear what Arthur had to say, but he needed to. He knew that much.

He wished that he could either just be Arthur's friend or avoid him for the entirety of their schooling. He didn't want to complicate things with bonds and feelings and shared histories.

But Arthur needed to tell him, needed to prove that he trusted Merlin, if the former was ever to be an option for them. Merlin almost hoped it would be, that he could forgive Arthur and the pain of the past four years would just evaporate.

No matter what the excuse was, it never would.

Merlin hated feelings.

So naturally, Arthur wasn't even in class.

Fuck him.

Merlin had been having a mental crisis for no good reason.

"Do you have any idea where he could be?" Alice squinted nervously down at him. She was on edge, what with so many students still in the hospital wing. Merlin had told her she didn't need to be in class today, especially since he appeared to be her only student. "Do you think he's having medical issues? I told him that if he didn't dress his wounds properly, they'd be infected. But Lancelot is with him…"

"I'm sure he's fine," Merlin reassured her, getting to his feet to awkwardly pat her shoulder. She smiled gratefully up at him. "Why don't you go back upstairs, maybe get some rest? I'm sure the school can survive without you for a few hours."

"But we've already missed so many classes…"

"I will read the rest of the textbook tonight," Merlin promised, almost hating himself for suggesting even more of an extra workload, but Alice was nothing if not worth it. "I'll find Arthur and tell him to as well, that way we'll know everything theory-wise, and it's just a matter of practical application."

"You're a darling," Alice reached up and smoothed Merlin's hair. He instinctively leaned into the motherly touch. Not many people were willing to make physical contact with him nowadays. Not that they ever did. "What would this school do without you?"

A thousand snappy retorts came to Merlin's lips, but he didn't speak, just gave her a sad, close-mouthed smile. Five minutes later, he was out of the classroom and into the hallway, Alice heading back upstairs to hopefully take a long, well-earned nap.

He should really find Arthur, for the sake of telling him about the Alchemy assignment, if nothing else.

Fuck.

"Do you know what class Lancelot du Lac has right now?"

Merlin found Leon in the courtyard. He, blessedly, had a free period at this time. Merlin hated him for it, and hit him lightly on the back of the head before swinging around to sit next to him on the bench. The weather was perfect for autumn; not too warm, not too cold, and slightly breezy. Leon looked up from his book to raise an eyebrow.

"What are you doing here?"

"Alice is busy and stressed, so Alchemy's out of the question, and Arthur wasn't in class, so I need to tell him the assignment," Merlin explained.

The eyebrow only went up further into Leon's hairline. He had obviously been spending too much time with Gaius lately. "And is that the _only _reason you're looking for Arthur?"

Merlin made a sulky expression. "….None of your business, Cartwright."

"Mmm," Leon hummed with a knowing look in his eye. Merlin wasn't sure what it was suggesting, and didn't think he wanted to know. His friend's voice soon turned serious, however. "Look, Merlin, I know Arthur's changed a lot this year, but he still – I mean, he was never a good person, at least to you. I just hope you know what you're doing."

"God, stop acting like a protective older brother, would you?" Merlin scoffed to cover up the fact that Leon had a good point. It wasn't like he was unaware of that, however. "I'm not making friendship bracelets and riding unicorns with him. I'm just…getting to know the Not a Total Prat part of him. Calm down."

Leon gave him another unreadable look and sighed. "I think Lancelot's in Arithmancy right now. He probably knows where Arthur is."

"You're my favorite," Merlin said in a sing-song voice, before an idea grew in his mind that would make Leon shut up for the foreseeable future. "That's it, isn't it? You're afraid Arthur will take your place as my best friend in the whole universe. You're jealous and petty because I don't love you best anymore. Don't worry, Leon, my love for you is eternal. If you don't marry Gwen, I'll marry you. Actually, if you don't marry Gwen, _I'll_ marry Gwen. Bye, Leon!"

"Shut up!" Leon called after him as Merlin grinned, heading away with a new bounce in his step, his smile actually genuine for the first time since the attack.

Having taken Arithmancy for three years, Merlin arrived at the classroom without a problem. Peering inside the door, however, there was no curly black hair of the Gryffindor Keeper. Merlin quickly ducked out to avoid being seen by anyone, and resigned himself to walking back up to the courtyard to bother Leon some more.

However, he first he had to run headlong into an unknown figure on the stairs.

"Hi, Edwin," Merlin grimaced at the slightly creepy Edwin Murray, fellow Slytherin seventh year. His face had been scarred in a fiery accident as a child, and Merlin had recently had a short conversation with him about how awful it was when people talked to the part of your face that wasn't quite whole.

Still, Edwin talked in riddles and ate frogs. Merlin, on principal, tried to avoid him.

"Merlin," Edwin greeted with a similar grimace, although that was to be expected, since Edwin never smiled at anyone. "What are you doing here?"

"Just popped in on the Arithmancy class," Merlin waved a hand back down the staircase. "If you'll excuse me…"

As Merlin tried to side-step the other boy, a thought occurred to him, one that made his stomach churn, but one he listened to despite his body's warnings. He turned back to the figure that had started walking away.

"…Hey, Edwin," Merlin began conversationally, casually. "Were you hurt in the attack at all?"

Edwin turned around to face him with a clear look in his light blue eyes. "No. I stayed out of harm's way."

"Ah," Merlin said, not certain on whether or not he should continue in this train of discussion. He plowed on – he started this, he should finish it. "Do you – do you know anything about the attackers?"

Edwin eyed him somewhat suspiciously, but with inklings of curiosity. "No…why?"

Merlin gave a noncommittal shrug that didn't at all match his racing heart. "Just wondering. Sometimes it seems like I'd get along better with them than the rest of this school, if you know what I mean?"

"The…rest….?" Edwin hesitated, but there was a smile curling onto his lips, almost sinister in looks, and it gave Merlin the courage to push forth.

"Yeah," he replied with a matching smile. "The rest."

"I can drop your name somewhere," Edwin said after a moment, with a double meaning clear in his words. "If that's what you want."

"I'd appreciate it," Merlin nodded at him in a kind of dismissal. Edwin took it with another smile, and then disappeared so quickly he nearly melted into the wall.

Merlin let out a heavy sigh, leaning against the staircase; if there had been a wall to rest his head on, he would have.

That had been quite the adventure, no matter how short-lived.

He attempted to ignore the copious amounts of self-hatred coursing through his veins.

He didn't have more than a second to consider the state of shambles his life was in until the staircase shuddered to a start, creaking as it jolted him forward, moving across the castle.

After his initial shock and knee-jerk reaction of "someone is coming to kill me", Merlin just sighed deeply.

Today was not his day.

When the staircase righted itself against the opposite floor, Merlin realized that it was pointing toward Gryffindor Tower. He had been about to give up his search for annoying Gryffindors, but…

What the hell.

Arthur was probably avoiding him anyway, so Merlin needed to take some sort of initiative here.

_Why do you care so much? _A nasally voice in the back of his head that sounded like a mixture of Gwen, Leon, and Isolde whispered, and he resisted the urge to hit himself over the back of the head for being exceptionally stupid.

Because he really didn't _know _why he cared so much.

Two staircases and six dirty looks from departing Gryffindor students later, Merlin found himself at the portrait hole to the common room, stuffing his green and silver tie in his back pocket. It would not bode will with the bloodthirsty Gryffindor savages.

But then again, it wasn't like he would blend in well anyway, with his status as Future Dark Lord of All and the hideous facial scars to match.

Maybe coming here was a very bad idea.

"Merlin Emrys?"

Merlin whirled around, wand out, ready for a fight from whomever the fuck this might be –

It occurred to him that maybe he shouldn't judge Gryffindors on sight alone. That made him a horrible hypocrite.

He stuffed his wand back in his pocket before looking up to find Gwaine Green regarding him curiously. There was no malice in his look, only openness, which made Merlin drop his guard. He was still very much prepared for a fight, however, if this was what it turned in to

"Paranoid much?" Gwaine almost laughed at him before looking up at the snoring Fat Lady in the portrait. "Oi! Wake up, you old cow. Some of us want to get inside our common room."

Merlin gave him an odd look as the Fat Lady jolted away with a grunt. "Well, I never!" she glared down at him, while Gwaine only smiled up sunnily in response.

"Cherry blossom," he said in a sing-song voice, and the portrait opened a moment later, though it was quite begrudgingly. Gwaine bounded up through the entrance, and peering through, Merlin could see quite a few Gryffindor students. He shrank back automatically, but Gwaine just looked down at him with raised eyebrows. "Are you coming or not?"

"Erm –" Merlin began, somewhat fearful and with the paranoia ever-present in his mind telling him that this was some horrible trick and he was about to be tortured and mutilated for hours on end. Then he remembered that human beings actually weren't that horrible and that Gwaine had always been at least halfway decent to him, and told himself to shut it. "I guess."

He clambered up the portrait hole, and Gwaine reached out a hand to help him through. It was a kind gesture, one Merlin wasn't used to, and it made him feel highly uncomfortable.

Especially since in the next moment, Gwaine decided to further invade his personal space and put an arm around him, almost shoving Merlin entirely underneath him.

"This is just for your safety," Gwaine muttered to him as he pulled Merlin through the Gryffindor common room. Due to Gwaine's head being in the way, Merlin couldn't actually glimpse the other students in the room. "Don't want you to get beat up or anything, Dark Lord."

"Thanks," Merlin muttered, and kind of meant it. At least Gwaine untangled his arms from around Merlin as they hit the staircase up to the dormitories. "Um, why am I here? Just of curiosity."

Gwaine gave him a look. "To talk to Arthur, obviously. I mean, that was why you were outside the door, right? You were looking for him?"

"…Yeah," Merlin said slowly. "Our Alchemy class was cancelled today and I needed to tell him the assignment."

Gwaine blinked as he started heading up the staircase, gesturing for Merlin to follow. Which he did. Very cautiously. "That's it? 'Cause Arthur's been having minor panic attacks all week. I think most of them were about you. So I figured some shit happened between you and you need to duke it out."

"Um…you could say that. I guess. Sure."

Merlin was only slightly aware of how nervous he had become. He suddenly wanted to turn around and run far, far away, at top speed.

The Caribbean was supposedly nice this time of year.

"Go on up – he's probably just sulking and avoiding you," Gwaine told him with a snort. "I swear he's a thirteen year old girl in disguise. I'll leave you to it."

"Okay," Merlin said, moving out of the way for Gwaine to head back down the stairs – why he had gone up in the first place, Merlin wasn't sure. He seemed very enthusiastic, however, which was…well, maybe not a good sign, but it wasn't exactly a bad one either.

Eying the staircase suspiciously, as if his Slytherin-ness wouldn't let him up, he tentatively headed up. He wasn't expelled immediately from the vicinity, so he took that as a sign he could keep going.

The seventh year dorms weren't hard to find, and Arthur and his friends' was the first in the row. Merlin debated on whether or not he should knock – it was a bit too polite for his personality, but at the same time, this was a very nerve-wracking experience for him.

He settled for knocking a couple of times before opening up the door.

The room appeared empty at first, so Merlin peered further in. It was even messier than his room, in all four corners of the room, and with the added bonus of a fuck ton of Quidditch gear. It was nice, though, and homey, though it was too red and gold for his taste. "…Arthur?"

The door opposite him that obviously led into the adjoining bathroom opened in the next moment and Arthur, shirtless and wearing nothing but a pair of black trousers, exited with a deer in the headlights expression. "Merlin? What – what are you doing here?"

"Um," Merlin said, determinedly looking not at his chest. "Gwaine let me up. Could you – could you put a shirt on, please?"

"Oh, uh, yeah," Merlin was pretty sure Arthur was blushing, but wasn't going to check. When he looked up next, however, Arthur had a white t-shirt on and Merlin felt much more comfortable with this situation. "So…what are you doing here?"

"Like I said. Gwaine. Seems to think we should talk. Plus, you've kind of been avoiding me." Arthur opened his mouth, probably with a retort, but Merlin cut him off. "Don't deny it, I know you have. Look, if you don't want to tell me, then don't. My friendship shouldn't be that important – I still don't see why it matters so much to you."

"But I – you saved my life," Arthur managed to get out while looking at a point somewhere over Merlin's head. "And plus, I – I feel really awful. Because you didn't deserve it, and I'm kind of just generally a piece of shit. But you probably – I mean, you should know."

"Well?" Merlin raised an eyebrow. "Then tell me."

Arthur swallowed. "Now?"

Merlin rolled his eyes. "No, tomorrow, fuck face. Hurry up. I'm leaving."

He began to retreat from the room, and almost hoped he could get out scotch-free, but Arthur cleared his throat forcefully.

"…Wait."


End file.
